The Overseas Men
by WWTL
Summary: After the victory over the Mountain Men, Lexa struggles with both a new ennemy and a new weakness while the Sky people try to go on without Clarke. None of them knows what has become of her.
1. Chapter 1

In her dream, she can hear herself shouting Costia's name on the battlefield. Screaming it. She doesn't care that all the warriors next to her can hear her, the fear in her voice. She doesn't care that she's throwing herself in the hands of the enemies, as long as she reaches the other girl in time. Of course, she doesn't. She never stood a chance. Her soldiers have to stop her from running straight to the enemy's trap and all that she can do when they finally kill her second is screaming over and over again, like she was a child chasing the monster of a nightmare away. That's how powerless she is.  
When her warriors find the body that the enemies left behind, she can't bring herself to even touch it. That body that she loved night after night, that was once her most cherished person, the one she fought with, the one she trusted… She can't even look at it, now.  
Now she is twelve again, she falls hard on the ground, feeling like she's bruised to the bones, Anya yelling at her. She rolls and gets back on her feet with a fierce look on her face and tries to strike again. This is only few days before she is confirmed as the next Commander.  
Her people come to her burnt, bleeding, carrying dead and dying ones, as she stands above them all, riding her unharmed horse. She deliberately left hundreds of them die today. This is the first time she has to make that choice, the strategic choice of watching her people die in order to achieve victory, in order to save more of them. She never lets a tear out of her eyes. She stands there, cold, no emotion on her face. She always knew that day would come, and her people need her to be that leader.  
Even dreaming, she knows what comes next. She knows it by the growing fear in her mind, this horrible feeling she came to know very well since Mount Weather. She knows it because that fear is not a dream, it's a memory, the most recent of those awful dark gems she collects.

The fear to confront Clarke.

She wasn't afraid of the fight, that night. She wasn't scared by the Mountain Men, nor had she been of any enemy in her life, and had stand in front of their leader unafraid, but when she had to come back to the Sky Princess and tell her what she had just done… If she had had to take that decision only for herself, she would have fought an army rather than go see her ally and see that look on her face when she realized the truth. That was the moment Lexa wouldn't think about when she was awake, and that she avoided even in her dreams.

She was awakened by the sound of her own voice, repeating "no" in a whisper. As usual, she interrupted the dream before it came to… She shook her head almost violently, to chase the thought away. It was still dark outside the Commander's palace and she just stood near to one of the entrances, watching at the sleeping city down below. For obvious reasons, the Capitol had been built almost a century ago on a high hill, from where one could see the entire land around, and the palace was on top of it. Lexa didn't grow up here; she was born in one of the outside clans, and she was thirteen the first time she actually saw the Capitol. Six years later, she was still impressed by the size of it. The newer part of the city, surrounded by the last walls, largely encroached on the plain, even including portions of the river.

She and her warriors of the twelve clans had walked into the Capitol triumphantly few weeks ago, and the celebrations had enlightened the city with bonfires that had been seen hundreds of miles around. The fighters had enjoyed themselves from sundown to dawn and two great clans from the south had joined the Coalition since her return, since her victory over the Mountain Men. Every man, woman and child knew this, as the first victory of the coalition, was a day to remember. The beginning of a new era for them, exactly what Lexa had fought for since she had become Commander. What she had to go through to achieve that didn't matter, she kept telling herself. She took pride on that success, on the loyalty and admiration of her people, and felt joy at theirs. When the sun was up, that was. Almost every night, she would do that dream, or another leading to the same thing. It was just a bad feeling in her stomach at day, and this nocturnal terror she forced herself to forget about the second she was awake.

She was the queen of her people, the greatest they ever had. They would rise from the ashes the ancients had left behind, and that was all that mattered. All was good.

Staring blankly at the city, Lexa chased the nightmare away once again, rejected the thought of Clarke, of anything that wasn't her people and her responsibility and went back to her room to dress up and arm herself before going down to the city. She had chiefs of clans to meet, trainings to supervise, and enough to fill her day and the next ones. She had to rule.

...

How the hell did that happen, Octavia had no idea. She was trained as a fighter as well as a tracker, when Clarke was… Well, not trained to anything, really. To be fair, anything in the field, cause she had other abilities, of course, but Octavia wasn't in the mood to be fair to the other girl right now. And yet, after days of discreetly following her, at good distance but close enough to ensure her safety, she had completely lost track of her. It was like Clarke had vanished, when she had been so easy to spot for the entire week. So easy, compared to the current nothingness, that Octavia was starting to wonder if the blonde hadn't been that noisy on purpose. It wasn't like Clarke didn't know how to be sneaky and treacherous, after all, when she wanted something. But why would she want to lose her watcher? She might feel like being alone, but Octavia hadn't exactly been all over her, and as daredevil as she could be, Clarke knew she needed protection, out in the wilderness of Earth. If she had indeed voluntary lost Octavia, it could only mean… OK, she didn't exactly know what it meant, but nothing good. Was her brother's precious princess up to something? Something that she would have kept hidden from everyone else? Or was she –Octavia's mind blanked at the thought- like, about to do something really, really, _really_ stupid and wanted to make sure the other girl wouldn't stop her? It was Clarke, the one who, few weeks ago, "wouldn't decide who dies and who lives". What she had done, from the bridge to the Mountain Men… Maybe they all had assumed more of her that she was able to bear. Maybe _she _had assumed more of herself that she was able to bear, always stepping up for everyone to rely on her. Now, that would be just great, Octavia thought bitterly, coming back to the camp carrying Clarke's dead body!  
It wasn't really helping thinking those kinds of things, though; whether she was right or wrong, it wouldn't help her to find Clarke, which she needed to do. She wasn't exactly happy with her right now, but she knew how much the girl had done for them to survive, and how much they needed her or at least needed to know that she was out there. Where could she be heading? Did she lose Octavia in the forest to follow Thelonius to the City of Lights? Leaving everything to find something she had no reason to believe existed, with no preparation, wasn't her style, but Octavia had to assume that the girl could be completely unpredictable. After all, she told Bellamy she was leaving with no destination in mind, so… If it was the truth, well, someone who would do that could have suddenly found a weird new purpose. Or, maybe, she was following the grounders. It wasn't the direction she took when leaving, but then again, that direction she followed until the previous evening might have been a trick destined to Octavia. He seemed likely, not really Clarke's style, but still more than to wander in the desert or take her own life. Even than to just wander in the forest with no goal, and losing Octavia would have been totally pointless, if that was what she has in mind. Maybe she felt like she should join the grounders for a while, to get closure about what she had done, to learn how to be the kind of strong leader they had? That seemed more like the kind of things she would do. But Octavia had no way to be certain about it, and if she chose the wrong direction, Clarke would find herself completely alone, completely vulnerable to pretty much everything.  
She came back to the last place she was certain Clarke had been, for there were still the remains of the fire she had lit. After that spot, not the slightest trace from the blonde girl. No, not quite true, there were few feet traces and broken leaves that Octavia had taken for a trail, but they had quickly ran off, and continuing in that direction, she had found nothing more. She had looked further in every damn imaginable direction, and the girl was nowhere to be found. She would have left more traces if she had flew away, probably. Octavia was so clueless about Clarke's disappearance that she actually wondered, for one second, if the girl hadn't had some kind of flying device with her. Probably not, she would have had trouble to hide that before. What the hell was she even thinking about?  
Or maybe she had been kidnapped? Not by a known grounder, since every warrior of the coalition had left the region, but… That still didn't explain the lack of a track, though. What if…  
She barely believed her eyes, when, approaching the dead campfire, she spotted, on one of the surrounding tree, a white piece of paper, covered with writing. That definitely wasn't there when she left, an hour ago. She rushed to it, snatched it from the tree – it had been pinned to the trunk with a small, sharp piece of metal that looked like a spaceship fragments. They had found a millions of those all around the camp after the crash.

"Octavia"

"-No, she didn't!" She mumbled when reading her name. She didn't know Clarke's hand-writing, but that could only be from her.

"I'm sorry about the fake track. I was on a tree when you left this morning. I can't have you following me. Go back to the camp and protect them, make sure the grounders stay our allies if they are to come back.  
I don't know if you can ever forgive me, or if I can even be. I'm not going to do anything reckless, so please, don't try to find me. Support Bellamy and the others.  
I would say may we meet again, but I'm not sure you even want that. I'm sorry.

Clarke"

There were no crossing-out, but every letter was well-formed, like she had written it slowly. She guessed Clarke had struggled with what she wanted to say. She wondered, briefly, if she still had a chance to catch up with her, but it wasn't worth trying. Clarke had well planned her escape, obviously, and it wasn't just so she could still be around when Octavia would find the message.  
She felt angry at first, and actually spent few minutes swearing about that idiot that was just going to get herself killed in the middle of nowhere, but she was angrier at herself, for getting played like that, and deserving the worst tracker of the year award.

"Of course, I want to see you again, idiot…" She muttered uselessly. Clarke had written she wouldn't do anything reckless, but it was hard to believe seeing the tone of her message. Really sounded like last wills or something like that.  
So now she had lost their leader in the forest, the said leader was possibly anywhere, going anywhere, with a single gun and no knowledge of the land whatsoever, because she felt guilty. Yay. Bellamy was going to freak out, to make things even better. He would probably send a search team, but that would be of no use. If Clarke didn't want get found, she had thousands of miles of land to hide, to disappear. Octavia had no clue about what to do next. Should she get back to the camp, as Clarke had ordered her (_that_ at least was her style: ordering even when she wasn't there), or keep looking for her, even though she had no idea where to look? What the other girl wrote was true: the grounders may come back. One on them would be enough to inform all the others that the Mountain Men were dead, and they wouldn't have to stay away anymore. Would they still consider the Sky people as allies with Clarke and Octavia gone? The only leader beside Clark they had really talked to was Kane, and he wasn't really in charge anymore… Keep looking pointlessly for Clarke meant leaving Abby Griffin deal with the grounders, and the very idea was laughable. She didn't understand them. Octavia wasn't Clarke, but she had been the only one to get close to the grounders, and Kane would consider that, and would make Griffin consider it to.  
Getting back to the camp seemed like the best thing to do, even if it meant leaving Clarke alone for good. Well, if there was one person who would understand the necessity to sacrifice a few to save the many…


	2. Chapter 2

Lexa's head was spinning by the time she gave the calumet back to Shaïra, the chief in second of the Mist Clan, who was sitting just next to her around the bonfire. Shaïra was younger than her from two years, but her face was already as scarred as a veteran's one. Lexa knew the second had proved herself a great warrior in the war between the Mist Clan and the now erased Swamps Clan, but never had the chance to meet her. She had seen her before, but always in the shadow of the Mist leader, and always briefly. She was a green-eyed girl, with dark hairs, and something in the way she moved and talked caught Lexa's attention few hours ago.

It was only hours later, with Shaïra asleep next to her, that Lexa finally admitted to herself the reason why. The Mist warrior, even though she didn't look like her, had reminded her of Clarke. She had something, maybe just the way she looked at people, not flinching, or…

« -Heda ? » Asked the other girl, snatching Lexa from her thoughts. «-Is something wrong?

-No, you can go back to sleep. Everything's fine. »

She needed to shake that off. Clarke was lost to her anyway, and she couldn't keep thinking or dreaming about her.  
It did get better, in the next days. Shaïra would often be with her at night, and Lexa would always find herself busy all day long. She wouldn't think about what happened, or about the sky people whatsoever. Things were fine, and when she would wake up shaking at night, or talking in the dark, praying for something long over not to happen, she would just wake Shaïra up and forget everything for a moment.

She was at the south limit of the city when the news hit. A village of the Ice Clan, away from the Capitol, had been destroyed. At first, when Rey, the Ice boy that had brought the news began to talk, she thought this was an act of war from another clan of the coalition, or from an outsider clan. The destruction occurred few days ago, but he still seemed upset, and she had to wait a moment for him to make sense. Even then, she wasn't sure he made any. He proclaimed that while he was hunting outside of his village, he had seen from afar a huge explosion of fire. He ran straight to his home, leaving his prey behind, to find dozens of people killed, the center of the village burnt to the ground. The survivors had started to die the next day. Their skins burned, leaving their flesh exposed, and the village had turned into a charnel, bloody unrecognizable masses of flesh that had been humans abandoned everywhere, left to the animals. Only few had survived the second day, and every one of them had died within a week, except Rey and her sister. He said most of the villagers died in seconds, but Lexa could see in his eyes the agony of the others, the days and nights of screaming, in the smell of dead flesh.

It wasn't long before reports of the region started arriving. No clan had entered the village; for miles around it, the animals were dead or dying, like the villagers; the woods started to perish, the ground was blackened. All of it was becoming a waste land, it was spreading like a disease.

Lexa left the Capitol with the Ice people. She had already ordered to burn the land in a circle surrounding the dark land, to stop the contamination, but she needed to see for herself, to find what happened and how it happened in the first place. Was it something that had been asleep for the last century, a weapon belonging to the ancients that suddenly awoke? Was it a disease, or radiations like the ones that had almost destroyed life once? And more important right now, would any measure she could take enough to stop it?

She had barely said goodbye to Shaïra. It didn't make her feel anything. A good thing, all considered.

She had sent a single warrior to the Sky camp. If the Coalition wasn't able to contain whatever this plague was, maybe the Sky technology would have answers. Despite what happened in Mount Weather, the Sky people and the Coalition were not enemies anymore, and that thing could quickly concern them all. Lexa didn't know if they finally had confronted the Mountain Men, and couldn't take the risk to break the truce she obtained by sending more than a hiding man alone.

She realized that all of the reports had been way under the truth when she arrived to the burnt zone. She led her horse on the top of a close hill to have a look at all the land, beyond the circle of containment. Everything was dead. The earth was black and cracked, the rivers just dry holes in the ground. Trees were only grey trunks of old wood, so thin that one could see right through the zone, that once had been an impenetrable forest. There was not a sound. Weirdly, that was what scared her the most. This unnatural silence where there was noisy life just a week ago.  
Nothing of that dark death had break through the burnt circle, and the all thing, from afar, was a huge black patch on the ground. Nothing could ever live here after that, she realized. It felt like a small part of the Earth itself had died, and she was certain that even deep down in the ground, everything was dead forever, from the roots to every subterranean animal.

One of her lieutenants joined her on the hill, stopping his horse right behind hers.

"-I don't think there's anything we can do now, Heda. It's over.

-For the ones who lived there, it is. But that thing is not over. This cannot be natural. Someone is attacking us, and that was just the first strike.

-No one has that kind of power, Heda. Even the Sky people or the Mountain Men, with all their… technologic things, could never do that. It can't be a weapon.

-Then what do you think it is? She asked, with more anger that she would have like. –The regular coming of winter? Look at it! This is the beginning, Maykl.

-Beginning of what?

She considered the land at her feet few seconds more before turning her horse down to it.

-War, she said without looking at him, leading her horse back on the path to the bottom of the hill. –War, she repeated softly, just for herself. A war against an invisible enemy she knew nothing about.

-What are we gonna do, then? He asked, following her. He seemed eager to ride away from the sight.

-First, send men in there. We need to know more, to know if it's even survivable or still able to contaminate people.

-Send men there? Heda, it is death, there! This all land is poisoned!

-We don't know that.

-Heda…

-We'll do as I say, do I need to remind you that?

-No. I just wish you say otherwise. This is all wrong."

…...

"-It's not like she got lost, Bell. She… She clearly ordered us to stay here and make sure everything stays all right. I don't think that she should be alone out there either, but she seems sure about it, so…

-I can't believe you lost her in the first place.

-I can't read minds, OK? Especially not hers, you should know better than anyone how good she is at hiding things. I didn't even know she knew I was here. You can't go after her anyway. We need you here. If you're not, the councilors are just going to take all the power back, and it would be like the Arch all over again. We can't lose both of you, you know that. Look, there is no one out there to hurt her anymore, she's reasonably safe.

-They won't listen to me without her, Octavia. She was in charge, not me.

-We will. We're the most experimented, and we will listen to you. Every man and woman whose child you saved will listen to you. Everyone in that camp knows we're the ones that made peace with the Grounders and vanquished the Mountains Men, not the councilors.

-We didn't made peace with the grounders, Octavia. Clarke did.

-Whatever. It may be a weird thing to say, but you're the closest thing from Clarke those people have. You can't just go wander around hoping to find her. We have no clue of where she's heading anyway, it's hopeless. She'll come back when she does. In the meantime, we have people to care for.

-Can I have that message again?

Octavia handed the letter to her brother once again, even though she was certain he already knew it by heart.

-You're right, he said finally, after reading it again. –I'm gonna miss her though.

-Yeah, Octavia replied. Thinking of how present the blonde girl had been I her life these lasts months, she realized she actually missed her too.

…...

The perfect half-moon was shining over the forest, reflecting itself in the agitated water of the river. For the first time since they had landed on Earth, the night was cold enough to turn Clarke's breathe in smoke.  
She shook embers a little to make them ignite the branches she just added to her camp fire. She didn't need it anymore to bake anything, but the heat was comforting. The light too. She found herself not fond of the dark, lately. Stare at the fire had something almost hypnotic, and she could think deeply, watching at those little colorful fairies dancing all over the wood.  
For the last few days, she had been following an unexpected direction. It started with metal pieces, damaged trees, burnt patches of grass. She knew it could only be landing of one of the parts of the Arch that had caused that. The crash of a part of the Arch, more than a landing, probably, given the perimeter of the debris. She had immediately decided to follow these to the Arch piece, in case there were any survivors. She doubted that, but she had to be sure.  
She sighed, as she shook the branches again, mostly to keep occupied. She didn't want to think, tonight. It would eventually become really cold in a short time, now, and she would have to protect herself from it.  
A noise behind her back made her turn around quickly, her gun ready to fire. She scrutinized the woods in front of her at the light of her fire, taking few steps back. Nothing was in sight. She stayed immobile a while, making sure she really was alone, before she sat down in front of the fire again. Tomorrow, she would probably make it to the Arch piece, and hopefully find living people there. She blinked several times to chase new tears away. Maybe seeing people would be good. She fell asleep crying that night too.

It was almost noon when she reached the crater that the Arch piece caused. It was a mess of melted and crushed metal, as she expected it to be. She went down anyway, adventuring herself on the roof of what was left of the corridors of the Arch, looking for a part not too damaged. The left part was less wrecked, and she found stuffs, objects remaining. She also found a practicable entry. She hesitated a minute, not sure she wanted to see what was probably inside, and finally entered. She kept herself ready to catch her gun anytime, and followed a corridor to a central room, where the Arch people had tied themselves, hoping it would help them to survive the crash.  
What seemed like hundreds of corpses were still in it, broken, already decomposing. She stepped back, with a moan of shock, and rushed to the corner outside the room, taking a while to calm herself down. There were clearly no survivors, but she still had to check the rest of the Arch piece. If there was even just one person who made it, she couldn't leave her here. She breathed in before reentering the room. Most of the corpses were still tied to the walls, and Clarke guessed they had been killed instantly by the crash, but some of them were lying down, untied, shriveled on the floor. Those survived it just to die from their wounds, or of thirst and hunger, maybe. And no one came to save them. One of the bodies she spotted, before rushing to the other side of the room, was as small as the kids she murdered in Mount Weather, untied, hanging on to an adult corpse.  
She walked through all the rest of the Arch, trying not to think about what she just saw, still trying against all odds to find survivors. She knew it was pointless, but felt like she had to do it anyway. She didn't have the right to walk away from it.  
She went out of the Arch as the sun gave its last rays, bathing the crater in a pink light reflected all over the metal. It made the edge of the roof she was trying to climb to get out scorching, and the all structure was spitting a blinding light, preventing her to even watch at it. It forced her to find another way out, without having to go through the corridors and the central room again, which she didn't think she could take. Not twice. She had to dig her way through debris to find another entrance to the Arch, leading to a different part of it. Few minutes, no more than ten, after she went back in, she heard footsteps near to her. Like the previous day, she took a while to look for who or what was there, and like the previous day, she had to admit she was alone. There was no one to be seen or heard anymore. She kept her gun in hand anyway, making her way to the exit, relieved by the lack of cadavers in this part of the Arch.

The man literally materialized in front of her, five foot from her. She raised her gun to him in a second, but he opened fire first, shooting her right leg below the knee. She fell with a scream, still holding on to her gun but didn't have time to replicate, for a second man appeared right next to her, caught her and applied a cold little thing on her neck.  
She felt only a massive stroke, before it all fell in oblivion.


	3. Chapter 3

Clarke came back to consciousness in a rectangular room with silver-colored walls. Still groggy, she tried to get up. She fell back on the floor, screaming in pain, when she tried to stand up. That was her leg reminding itself to her. She moaned of pain while sitting down and getting her leg closer to look at it. The sight of the wound made her cry of fear as she hesitantly reached the tourniquet. Whoever did this at least made sure she wouldn't bleed to death, but otherwise, the wound was untouched, left open. She could actually see through her leg. The bullet had damaged her tibia on its way but didn't break it.  
The room that she felt moving till now stopped with a jolt as two men appeared next to her. They were wearing the same white armor than the ones that had attacked her in the Arch.

"-Who…" She started, before one of them violently grabbed her arm and lifted her up. She couldn't hold another scream of pain, when forced to support her weight on her right leg. The man stopped and after a second of immobility, forced her arm around his shoulder as he grabbed her waist with his. She thought a door she couldn't see for now was going to open, but instead, the entire room vanished around them, and they fall from a feet high on the ground. It was daylight again, which meant she had been unconscious all night.  
Clarke's leg was sending waves of burning pain to her entire body and the man roughly dragging her was only making it worst. She realized her neck was hurting too, as if small needles were piercing it where the device had touched her.  
The two men stopped walking, the one holding her first, the other one right after. He triggered something in his armor, and out of nowhere, as suddenly as the grey room had vanished, the ground itself opened with a rumble.  
With absolutely no idea of what she was going to do, Clarke pulled herself out of the grip of the armored man, kicking him in the chin. She fell on the ground and got up as fast as she could, contracted all her body to mask the pain, and started running. She hardly made it ten feet away from the men before the second one rushed to her and tried using the KO device again. She struggled so hard when he caught her that he left the device down to immobilize her, while the other man, after taking his breath with difficulty, ran to them. He just stood in front of her for a second, his face masked by the white helmet, then lifted is hand to punch her in the face. She felt her neck nose cracking as the back of her head hit the armor of the other man. The taste of blood spread in her mouth. Before she could react, he put the device on her neck once again, throwing her on the ground, shaken with convulsion.  
She didn't pass out, but after the first seconds, where her body felt completely uncontrollable, she froze. It seemed like every inch of her body was sinking in deep cold water, leaving her barely able to move. One of the men carelessly threw her on his shoulder before entering below the ground.

…...

It took exactly a month and three days after Clarke's departure for the Councilmen to take back the power. That was the exact amount of time they used to make all survivors of the hundreds look like scared, traumatized children in the eyes of those of the Arch, organize elections for a new Council, the first Ground Council ever, decide that of course, minors would not be allowed to vote and get the Archers think that only old councilmen and their closest friends were able to drive them "into this new era". Dixit Kane himself.  
Bellamy – and every one of the hundreds – tried to get them a least a place in this new organization. They would have been ready to negotiate, if Bellamy had been allowed a place in the Council or something. If they had had a say. Something. But they had deliberately been put in the position of children that needed to be protected. One of the things that enraged Octavia the most was that the Councilmen, except for Kane, actually believed what they were saying. No, _Kane_ totally knew what was going on, and was playing power game. Clarke's mother, however, was just… Well, good for nothing. Seriously. And played by Kane. Seeing herself like this savior, leader, whatever, when the only smart thing she had done since the landing was to let her daughter in charge for good. Bellamy had followers, but mostly the young, and even though he had charisma, he didn't have that legitimacy Clarke had built for herself, that allowed her to lead even the adults from the Arch. It was easier for them to just push him away, and if he started to make too much noise, reminding him how forgetful they had been about his crimes.  
Few of the hundred were okay with the new situation, but not the majority of them, and certainly not Octavia. She had kept silent anyway, until right now. _That _was way over the line. Like, so way over it that the line wasn't even visible by now.

"-Don't even touch it!

-Drop it immediately!

-No way!

-Octavia, drop that sword right now! You're not allowed to carry a weapon!

-I'm as allowed as you, and you were okay with carrying a weapon when it was to save your ass!

-You heard the new rules, like everyone else. There are no exceptions! You're not part of the guard, you don't carry freely a lethal weapon! You're not beyond the rules, no matter who you think you are!

-I'm a warrior! I don't care if you choose to be Kane's puppy, I'm gonna keep my sword, and you'll be happy I did when you get into anything dangerous that you won't know how to handle! You don't know this world, and neither do the Councilmen!

-Come on, don't make me threaten you. I don't want the first time I unlocked that gun safety to be against one of my own. Just drop it.

-Come take it, we'll see who's more able to defend us.

-Octavia!"

She stop mean-staring at the guard to watch Kane rush to them, Sinclair (who, what a proof that democracy ruled, had been elected as a Councilman) behind him.

-Chancellor, she said, putting her sword back in its sheath. She wasn't angry enough to actually threaten him, or even look like she was. Mostly, she did not care to end up in jail. The guy probably would lock her away if he considered it necessary.

-What is going on? Were you about to raise your gun on her, Marshall?

-She won't let go of her weapon, Sir. According to the last Council decision, sir, only members of the Guard are now allowed to carry lethal weapon.

-Indeed. Octavia?

-Don't look at me like that! He's right, I won't let go of my sword, nor my knife!

-You don't _ need _any of it, Octavia. We're safe, now.

-I need it if I wanna go outside, to hunt or defend myself, and I need it to train!

-You're not on the hunter's list. And again, we're safe, you don't need to train to anything anymore.

-You're not keeping me inside, Chancellor. I'm not a kid anymore, and we're not on the Arch, you don't get to float me if I don't do what you order!

-I'll take it from here, Marshall. Sinclair, go back to what we talked about. Listen, Octavia," he continued when the two men left, "- I got that you're frustrated. You got to be free, to be a grown-up, a warrior, and now you're back to being a child who has to follow rules, and I'm never going to be able to convince you it is for your own good, even if it is. But you can understand that we need rules to survive, to establish a stable society here, and people can't just break them when they feel like to, whatever their reason is. You're no exception, Octavia. You did good here, and one day, it is probable that your brother, your friends and you will be the ones in charges. But until now, you don't get to make the rules or follow only the ones you like.

-I'm following the ones that make sense. The reason you don't want us to have weapons is not because you fear accidents, or even revolt. You just want make us look like kids, so Bellamy doesn't stand a chance to power in front of you, and that's just about making Clarke powerless, because you know that the second she gets back, you won't be in charge anymore. You pretend to care about those people, but you just want to rule them. And I'm not giving you my sword.

-Is that what you're telling to each other? That I'm just a mean guy that want to be king? And that Clarke's just going to show up and rescue you all from by awful reign? You're right about needing a weapon outside. She's alone out there, and the longer she is away, the slightest are the chances she ever comes back. That part of your lives is over, Octavia. You're not refugees desperately trying to survive anymore. You're part of an organized society, and you don't need to be a warrior, to fight for your people anymore. That's a role you should never have had to play, and I'm not stealing power from you. I'm just protecting you as you should have been all along. Just give me that. If anything dangerous comes along, you won't need – no one will- anything else than the guards to protect you."

"-We NEED to get Clarke back!

-Hum, Octavia, aren't you the one who said she'll be back when she is?

-Jasper?

-Yeah?

-Forget what I said. I was just… I was angry at her. Still kind of am, but it doesn't matter. She needs to get back here, now!"

It was only few hours after her talk with Kane, after she finally gave him her weapons. She hadn't been convinced by his words, as wise and nice as they had seemed. She had been scared by what he didn't tell. By what his eyes were saying as he reasonably talked to her. She didn't know if she played well enough for him to think she would behave, so she hadn't lost time to gather what was left of the hundred on a the radio room. Raven was the only one there most of the time, except for Kyle, and the guy was getting drunk at the other side of the camp that night. If he was to come back, they could always say they were just enjoying themselves innocently. They were still allowed to do that, at least.

"-Listen, I agree with you," Bellamy said, "-but we don't know more than last month where she is, even less. Like you said, we can't go wander around hoping to run into her.

-That was when we were supposed to matter here, to be responsible for people. It's not like we really have anything else to do, now.

-Still, Bell's right. We need somewhere to begin with." Jasper thought out loud.

-We could split in teams, for the ones who are in, that is, and check few possible destinations, like the grounders villages, or the old shelters we found in the forest till now…

-Yeah, Monty's right. At least that will be places we can cross off the list of possibilities.

-And Polis, the Capitol of the Grounders, too.

-What? We don't even know where that is! And what would she be doing there?"

Octavia had an imaginary flash of Clarke training as a grounder warrior, in grounder clothes. Not very convincing.

"-I think I heard the Commander tell her something about the city. I don't know, she… She felt so guilty, maybe she thought… That the Grounders wouldn't see what she has done as a bad thing or something like that? Not that we do, but, you know what I mean. I mean, it's not completely impossible.

-It could be… Yeah, maybe. I thought about it when I lost her track. And there were an entire army of Grounders going back there, that shouldn't be very hard to track down, even a month after. But the ones who will go that far will need serious weapons and provisions, and…

-I can get that.

-Bell, you're one of the Guards. If you help us, they'll know it…

-I will be in the Polis team. If another team finds her before we come back, we're golden, as if we find her there. If we don't… We'll just keep looking. Octavia's right, it's the beginning of a dictatorship we're facing here, and we can't afford a revolution or a schism. This is our world, now. If we want it to be good, to be safe and fair, we need to make that happen for ourselves. We need to put the right people in charge, and not the ones that locked us in, send us die here, and took our new home to them. We need the one WE chose to lead us, the one who saved us all. We need Clarke! Who's in?


	4. Chapter 4

"-It's okay, Bell! It's okay, it's Lincoln!"

Five Sky people had finally took the road to Polis, led by Bellamy and Octavia. They had renounced, after long talks regarding their organization, to steal weapons from Camp Jaha. Running away was a thing, getting hostile another. Bellamy only had a gun, his own, that he was allowed to carry inside the camp, being a guard. They had left for Mount Weather the previous morning, both because it was where the grounders trail started and a place full of weapons, provisions, and material now available. None of them enjoyed the idea of stealing from the dead, possibly having to take weapons from the corpses themselves, but it was from far their best option.  
They quickly realized they weren't the first to put feet inside of Mount Weather. The bodies had been removed, even all of the ones in the dining room. There was still dry blood stains on the floor, but no signs of the dead themselves. Next thing they knew, they weren't even alone in the mountain. They caught the other intruder after an hour of search, afraid it would a last Mountain man, treated with sky people blood, with nothing left to lose. When they finally got to him, Octavia was the first one to recognize him, and had to stop Bellamy to shoot him. He stepped back immediately, keeping his gun pointed at the grounder. He had come to trust him with time, but his presence here was too unexpected to let his guard down without an explanation. Octavia, however, already throw herself in Lincoln's arms, making her brother's prudence pretty useless.

"-What are doing here? Is your clan here too?" He asked as the grounder hugged Octavia back. She was so excited to see him again that Bellamy knew he couldn't count on her to be even a little suspicious about him.

"-No. Indra left me the choice of leaving with them or come back to you. I don't have a clan anymore.

-Why are you…"Bellamy started, but Octavia interrupted him.

"-Why haven't you came back to us?

-I planned to come back and help you fight the Mountain Men, but when I arrived, they were all dead. I had to finish what we started here. I burned the bodies where they kept my people prisoners, and destroyed their experiments. I cleaned this place of its abominations. I was going to come back to you, but I needed to finish everything here. What happened? Haw have you killed them all without our army?

-Clarke and I let the radiations in. It was the last thing we could do. It killed everyone."

It was almost the first time since it happened that Octavia heard her brother talk about it. She didn't know how it affected him. Lincoln looked at him for few seconds, and finally didn't ask more about it.

"-Why are you back here? Is Clarke here too?

-We… We don't know where she is. That's why we are here. We're going to look for her, and we needed supplies for the journey.

-What happened? Did she get lost?

-She left."

They stayed in Mount Weather till the next morning. Lincoln had furnished them all the weapons they could possibly need and decided to leave with them. Octavia was the main reason he had left the Grounders, and where she was, he would be too. He would be their guide to Polis, the city he thought he would never see again.

…...

She travels at night once again, almost asleep on her horse. She lets its slow rhythm and the steady sound of its hoofs slowly soothe her. She always liked riding at night. It's not really safe with anything else that the most certain horse, but it always feels appeasing, and calm. She needs that right now. She has no news from the scout she send to the sky people yet, and she is starting to worry about that. If he's been taken by the Mountain Men, this could send them back on the path of war, and ruin the truce she painfully obtained. And even if she didn't want to admit it, she wants to know what has happened to the sky people.  
It's the middle of the night, her warriors are way behind her. There is no one to see her, to hear her, except herself, so she could just confess, at least to herself, that what she really wants to know is what happened to Clarke. She would never have left her people prisoners in Mount Weather, so Lexa can only assume she went back. Or maybe she went in the minute the grounders left. Everything she knows as a warrior tells her that the army of the sky people cannot have vanquished the Mountain Men. Clarke wouldn't either have sent her people to certain death, though. What has she done? Has she been prudent enough to just leave it there, and lead the ones she could still protect?  
She would never let those thoughts enter her mind if it wouldn't for her exhaustion, the comfort of the dark woods, and her half-sleeping state. She has traveled through the territory of almost all of the clans of the coalition since the first Wasteland has appeared, only to find other dark circles of death. Burning everything around manage to contain every one of them for now, but they keep appearing everywhere. She left some of her best warriors in villages untouched, to guard them. They're supposed to spot anything suspicious that could happen. She is certain, and all the chiefs of the clan also are, that there is nothing natural in it. Someone is killing them by killing their lands. The warriors she left behind are supposed to catch the ones who are doing it whoever they are. Probably just puppets in the hands of unknown masters. When she find those…  
It is no use to keep traveling in her territory, she won't learn anything she doesn't know yet. What she knows is that someone is killing her people. That even the ones who escapes, as Rey the Ice boy and her sister, eventually die, burning with no heat. Even the one that venture in the dark spots days after the initial explosion die. The objects they brought back kill others. She knows it poisons everything that lives.  
Lexa is young, and the Earth Irradiation happened a long time ago, but every child knows what radiations are. Those are nothing like the ones that almost killed human race a century ago. They are worst, from far. All the clans are aware of the threat, but none can do anything about it. Right now, she fears their only hope is the sky people, for they know so much more about those things. Like the Mountain Men, they have high technology and scientific knowledge. She can't wait for the scout to come back with news, and that is why she is, with a small group of warriors, traveling at night on a path she was forbidden to take again. Riding in the dead of night to Camp Jaha.  
And even in those circumstances, with the fate of her people weighing on her shoulders, she can't help herself to think that every footstep of her horse brings her closer from Clarke. To wonder if… To wonder how Clarke will react. If she was ever going to forgive… No. No, no, no. She was not going to think about that. She didn't need any forgiveness. She had only filled her role. Saved her people. Whatever Clarke and her… No. She could not have put the life of so many of her warriors at risk just for Clarke's sake. She had tried to teach Clarke that you couldn't put your heart before your head, even if you felt for every one of those you couldn't have saved, even if your heart… Especially if you felt so much.

Turning her head back, she saw that Maykl had doubled the others riders to get closer to her, though staying too far to talk to her. She knew he was starting to get nervous with the proximity of the now forbidden zone. His brother death had hit him hard, she knew it, but he hadn't let anything appear. He seemed as heartless as a good warrior should be. Yet it had been an awful death, not the death any warrior would want, in a fight, against an enemy worthy of his respect. He had surrounded at good distance by Lexa, his brother and other warriors, yet alone, for none of them could approach him. He died screaming, burning alive, his skin destroyed by radiation, letting smoking flesh out. They had all seen him get out of the dead zone, covered by one of the anti-radiations suits they took from the Mountain Men soldiers weeks ago. He had managed to get an object from the central zone of the circle of death, a radioactive sword he brought back to the limit between the sane ground and the wasteland. They had all seen him ripped his suit apart to let his skin free. What was left of his skin.  
They had used two of the suits to wrap up the sword, and until now, it seemed to have protected them from the radiations. They took it in their journey to the Sky people camp, so they would have something to learn from, to analyze. That was the only time someone had voluntarily walked into a wasteland. Walls of wood had been constructed around them, altering even more the landscape.  
The first lights of dawn finally appeared above the forest, bringing the painful cold of the beginning of the day. Maykl finally pushed his horse to join her.

"-We will be entering the forbidden zone in less than an hour, Heda. Are you certain…

-Yes."

She said nothing else. They already had this talk before. Maykl knew what her tone meant and didn't insist. He and few others would come with her, while the rest would stay at the limit with the horses. It would have been faster to join Camp Jaha riding, but it would also have left a trail more than easy to spot and follow, and the Sky people had no horse. If the Mountain Men were to see the horse trail, the truce was over. If the Mountain Men were still there, that was. Since the scout she sent never came back, she knew nothing of what happened. Maybe the Sky people has vanquished them, maybe they had been massacred. What if the Sky people were all dead or prisoners, now? Would she have to seek help from the Mountain Men themselves? The thought repulsed her. Having to treat with them, knowing what they did to her formers allies…  
It was no use to encumber her mind with "What if?", she reminded herself. She would see for herself in few days, now, just the time it would take to get to Jaha Camp. Wondering about things she had no control over would just get her distracted, which she could not allow.

As it turned out, she didn't even have to wait those few days to figure out what happened since she left the region. Around midday, for hours after they crossed the forbidden limit and left the horses, they heard, not far from them, the noise of a small group of walkers, that weren't particularly careful about the noise they were making. She and her warriors slightly deviate from their path to watch them from afar, to see who they were. Sky people, Mountain Men?  
Even after the time and efforts she put in forgetting about that night, about Clarke, she felt her heart beating way too hard in her chest, making her feverish as she came close enough from the walkers to see them.

"-Sky people", Maykl whispered to her.

And it was. She recognized Octavia immediately, and Lincoln, Bellamy, and three others she had never seen. Young enough to be the ones the Mountain Men had captured. She closed her eyes a second, trying to handle the overwhelming wave of hope that the sight of the walkers provoked in her.  
She barely realized what she was doing when she rose from behind the bushes, stepping up in front of the walkers, her blade not even out of its sheath. The walkers raised their guns in a second, as Maykl and her others warriors joined Lexa, swords unsheathed. It took no time before Lincoln, Bellamy and Octavia recognized her.

…

Galton just finished supervising the sharing of the food in the cell when the men in white opened an entrance in the middle of the wall.  
The first days after the landing of their piece of the Arch and their capture, all the survivors had been reasonable, sharing the food and water equitably, but with time passing, they became more scared and began to eat before anyone else, to throw themselves at the rations like a bunch of wolves. They would have been ready to let the weaker ones die, to ensure their own survival. It scared Galton to no end, the rapidity of the transformation, from civilized, altruist people to barbarians. Few weeks and hunger was all that it took.  
He had the chance to be tall and strong, and took upon himself to establish some kind of discipline in the group of prisoners. The rations were just enough to stop them from starving, but until now, everyone was still alive, and they kept listening to him. He knew it wouldn't last forever, and that they needed to get out of here one way or another. He wasn't sure how, though. When the men in white brought food and water, they were always five, armored, armed, and the prisoners who tried to attack them in the beginning had been neutralized with the little grey thing all the soldiers carried. It put the prisoners KO for hours. Some had tried to talk to the armored men, with no results whatsoever.  
Galton had never been knocked out by the little device, but he had noticed than the ones that had been more than once resisted better every time. He wondered how insensitive to it they could become, with few more touches. It was a long shot, but he thought that maybe, if the ones who could resist attacked the soldiers, they could take the advantage if there were enough of them. Then, with the devices taken away from them, the soldiers would be vulnerable to the rest of the prisoners –they would still have their guns, but the room was small and they wouldn't have time to use them so much before being submerged by the group of Archers. He had started to talk about it to the ones concerned, the ones that had experimented the device few times before. He didn't want to expose his idea to the others right now, afraid that he would cause panic if he came to them with half of a plan and the entire group to convince. Especially since there was no way everybody would survive in this plan, and that they knew nothing about what they would be confronted to, once out of the cell.  
He approached Ace, a sixteen years old boy who was enthusiastic about his plan. He would have tried anything to get out of there, Galton thought. His best friend was aboard a different piece of the Arch, and he was admittedly desperate to find her. It was the fifth time he took a shot of the device, and this time, he stayed fully conscious, even if he was currently scratching the floor, a grin of pain on his face, trying to control the brutal spasms of his body.

"-You ok? Is it getting better?" Galton gently asked.

Ace's answer was an angry grunt. Galton had saved his share of food and water for when the boy would able to eat it. It seemed like he was going to get better really quickly, compared to the others times. He was already free of convulsions, and just laid on the floor, panting.

That was the moment the wall opened, and every one of the prisoners knew something was up. They have been there for at least a month, maybe two, and not once the wall had been opened twice in a row. There were ration time, and nothing else to the next one.  
There were only two men this time, holding a blonde girl. They threw her in the room with no words, stepped back, and the wall closed behind them before anyone had time to react. The girl, her hands attached by a metallic chain, blindfolded, her face covered of blood, fell on her knees. Galton rushed to her and started unchained her.

"-Don't be scared, you're safe. No one here is going to hurt you", he said, as she blenched when she felt him in her back. "-We're prisoners too."

She took away her blindfold as soon as her hands were free.

"-Are you okay?" Galton asked, concerned.

"-What is this place? Who are those men? Do you…" She stopped talking and took a look to the rest of the cell, considering the fifty prisoners around them. "-Who are you?

-That's the Councilmen's daughter!" A man suddenly shouted. "-The Griffin girl!

-You're from the Arch?" She asked, -What piece?

-Second north piece. We've been captured right after the landing. Are you really…

-Don't distract us!" Another man cried "-Your parents knew this would happen! That we would have to be thrown into space...

-That our families would have to die without oxygen to make sure everyone in the Council would survive?

-You knew too!

-You think we're gonna share our rations with you after what your kind did to us?

-Stop!" Shouted Galton, standing up in front of the group. "-Are you all mad? She's not an enemy, she's one of us! She may know where the rest of our people are!

-Her family…

-Who cares?! Whatever the Council did, that's why we are still alive now, and I doubt she had anything to do with it anyway! Leave her alone!

-Hey, he's right", Ace said, sitting next to Galton. "-She can't be a problem compared to the ones that keep us here, anyway."

Few prisoners mumbled a little, not convinced, but the majority let it go, more concerned about staying safe than organize revenge, and sensitives to Galton's authority. He came back to the girl.

-Are all the survivors of your Arch piece here?" She asked, looking scared to hear the answer.

-All the ones we know about, at least. I'm Galton, and this is Ace. You really are…

-Clarke. Clarke Griffin, yeah.

-Wow. Do you know about the others Archers? How many made it? How many time has it been since the landings?

-And do you know a girl named Callie?" Ace asked anxiously, while attacking the ration Galton kept for him. He stopped a second to propose water to Clarke, who drank only a little before answering.

-We didn't find all the other pieces yet, but for what I know, two of them at least had no survivors. Most of the passengers of the biggest one made it. I haven't heard about your friend, but it doesn't mean that there is no hope. Do you know where we are? Who those men are?

-No idea. Most of us were unconscious when they put us here, and since then, we just see them when they come to feed us. That was the first time they came for anything else. We don't know why they are doing this, or anything else. You don't know either? What happened to you?

-They found me on a landing site. I was looking for survivors. Have you seen what they can do? Ace, that spot on your neck… Is it that thing they use to…

-To knock you out and get rid of you? Yep!

-It's not the first time, is it? It does get better every time?

-Ah, they did you the honor too. Yes, it's been just few minutes, and I'm already on my feet. Galton and I think that if we can train ourselves to become insensitive to it…

-We can take them down when they come?

-That's what we're hoping for.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun is up in the sky, the air cold. In the plain, alone, the blonde girl is walking. Dressed in black, dressed like a warrior. She seems incredibly small in this landscape, this green plain surrounded by mountains. Is she running away, or heading somewhere?  
Once again, Lexa's dream are haunted by Clarke. By something she didn't even see, just an imaginary sight she can't get out of her head since Bellamy and Octavia told her was happened when she left. She thought she was mourning Clarke's friendship, or what could have happened between them, that she was struggling with what she had done to her allies. Turns out she didn't even know what struggling meant.  
She put Octavia back to her place when the girl practically spit the story at her. Saying that it was Lexa's fault, that she was the reason Clarke had ever let innocent people die when the missile had been launched, her fault if Clarke had to kill all those people, her fault even for Finn. Lexa had just looked down to her, told her that it was spoken like a child, and got back to listening to Bellamy. Everything with that imperturbable attitude she had years to improve. She ignored the furious look Octavia gave her since the moment she recognized her. _You did this_, the sky girl seemed to be saying, even with her mouth closed.  
Bellamy hadn't say anything like that. He never talked about Clarke like she was the one to make the decision, using only "we" when he came to it. Never even referring to what lead them to it. Then Lincoln told his part of the story, his stay at Mount Weather, his arrival in the middle of the amount of corpses.

She woke up at first light the next day, near to the entrance of Mount Weather. She felt crushed by sadness. Not the violent fear of her previous nightmares, just a grey overwhelming feeling of sadness. The memory of that night, the knowledge of what happened next… It was poisoning her since she left the Sky people. Was it so wrong, what she had done? It was the first time she allowed herself to question it. Had she been wrong all along? How could she _feel _like that if it was the right thing to do? She managed to appear heartless for so much time that she felt like she really was, before she met Clarke. She had tried to make her the same way, but it seemed like the exact opposite happened. Clarke had made her feel alive for the first time in years, and in return, Lexa had turned her into a cold-blooded killer. And suddenly, no matter what her head was telling her, she didn't know anymore which was right and which wrong.  
Maybe it was all for the best. Her people were safe, Clarke's people were as well, and the threat of the Mountain Men exterminated. But the thought of the Sky people leader leaving alone, struggling with what she did –who she became… Lexa had to hold back her tears, thankful it was still dark enough to hide her from the other's looks. She thought of her first killing. Not the first time she had killed someone –she honestly didn't remember this one- but the first time she had to order a slaughter. An entire village that she had to accept would never surrender, would never make peace. The older, the younger, all the warriors, they had all perished in one red night. The fire had burnt for days and it took the greats rains of fall to finally stop it. She herself killed a lot of them. So many people. She thought, that year, that she was never gonna be able to carry on as the Commander. That she would never be able to do anything like that again, no matter all the good reasons she had. But her people loved her. Admired her, feared her. Before that, they obeyed because it was their way to obey the Commander, nothing more. After that night, she had become more to them, their rightful leader, the one they would have follow anywhere, in anything. They had loved her because her victories would allow their children to grow, admired her because she was making them more powerful than anyone else, feared her, but with a kind of pride, because all the others clans now had reasons to be afraid.  
Clarke had cut herself from all of that. Chose to deal alone with her grief. Instead of making her a leader, it could as well cost her her life, given the fact that she was alone in nature, with only a gun and nothing to help her get to the coming winter, or her mind. And it was, even though she had not much of a choice at the time, it was Lexa's fault.

"-I don't know why they're making such a big deal about it. It was awesome; and they saved us."

Lexa heard the whisper from the other side of the camp fire. It was one of the three Sky people she didn't knew, the brunette with short hairs. She was talking to the two others, trying to make the less noise she could.

"-Yeah. They would have had to kill them anyway, I mean, they weren't gonna come back to the Mountain every time someone would be kidnapped…" The boy agreed.

"-That doesn't mean they have to enjoy it. The Mountain Men were still people…

-They were damn vampires, Leal!" The first girl said, more loudly than the two others. The three checked with guilty faces if everyone else was still sleeping. Lexa stayed quiet, hoping they would keep talking.

"-And even the ones that didn't fight used people's blood! I don't fancy the Grounders, but still, they're not to lock in cages like animals!" The brunette said once certain she hadn't woke anyone up.

"-There were children," Leal softly reminded her. "-I agree with you, Keagan, I'm just saying that I wouldn't want to be the one that had to make the decision, that I understand they feel guilty.

-Ha! I would have like it, just for the fun of sending all of them to hell! They would have killed all of us. Ok, we killed them all instead, but they forced us to. _They _put Clarke and Bellamy in a position where they had no choice, I don't see why they should be feeling guilty.

-I'm not questioning the reason… It's just… Killing that much people, even with good reason, must feel awful.

-You're so soft…

-Hey!" The boy get closer from the two girls, whispering even lower. Lexa couldn't hear what he said, but seeing the way the three turned their heads at her, she supposed he had realized she was awake and just told the two girls.

"-Hum, hem, sorry, for, hem, if we woke you up…" The boy stuttered.

"-I was awake.

-Oh.

-So what do _you_ think?" Asked the brunette, with a fierce look, looking like she was ready to get in a fight just for daring talk to the Commander. "-About what we were talking about?

-Your leaders did what they had to do. Feeling guilty about it is understandable, but useless." She hesitated a second. "-It proves they know the value of life, though, and if they get past that, it is what will make them great leaders.

-I don't see how mourning enemies…

-Keagan!"

The girl shut up and just took a stubborn face. She really seemed ready to start an argument, but the two others dissuaded her with significant looks, as if Lexa, right in front of them, couldn't see it.

Bellamy woke up few minutes after, and took a ration out of a backpack that he proposed to Lexa. She declined, but the three, seeing it as a permission, rushed at the backpack to get their breakfasts.

"-I guess Octavia and Lincoln will be back soon", he said to Lexa. "-What about your warriors?"

They had decided the previous day that the Sky people group would go back to Camp Jaha with Lexa and her soldiers, to help the negotiations; her warriors went back to the frontier in the night, to inform those who stayed there, and send them looking for Clarke on their way back to Polis. Lexa had warned the Sky people that chances to find her were thin, for they would have ran across on their way if she had chosen that path.

"They'll be back before the sun's fully up.

-Okay. What are you going to do, once in Camp Jaha? Just go to Kane, and ask for help?"

Lexa gave him a cold look: "-I will not _ask _for any help. I'm going to warn him of the danger we are all in, and offer our collaboration."

Bellamy raised his eyebrows skeptically.

"-Given the way our last alliance ended…

-From what I know, he himself didn't hesitate to sacrifice people to save more. I trust he will understand the necessity for us to help each other.

-What if he doesn't?

-I've been told you led your people well in the past, Bellamy. I suppose some of them would like to see you back in that position.

-What is that supposed to mean?

-It means that your people need to be led by someone who'll take the right decisions. If Kane doesn't, then they will need a new leader.

…

"-Your leg looks really weird, you know that? It's like there's a hole weirdly cicatrized…"

Clarke took a look at what was left of her wound. It was a fact that the healing had been strange. When the men in white blindfolded her, it was still an open hole in her flesh, driving her mad of pain; before they took her to the cell, though, they pressed something on it, and if the burn had made her scream, she hadn't feel anything after it. When she had been able to look at it again, the wound looked like an old scar, leaving a hollow in her leg, right under the knee. It really didn't look like any cicatrization she had ever seen.

"-I know. I don't how they did it, but at least, it's healed.

-So, wait, they can open the ground and the walls, they can teleport, they magically heal bullet wounds, they have disappearing travelling rooms, and…

-And KO devices, Gal!" Ace interrupted.

"-Yeah, that too. Who are they? And how are we supposed to handle them?

-We'll figure it out. We need to warn everyone else of all that.

-Ok," said another of the ones who went along with Galton's idea, "-We all get that those men are dangerous to our people, but we can't even manage to get out of here. Galton's plan is the best we have, and it's not getting us far right now. I mean, Ace, you're the one that tried it the most, and it still puts you down.

-I'm almost there! One or two times more, and I'll be okay, I'm sure! It's the same for all of you, just few times more…

-And what? We'll get out of the room just to face magical guys…

-We don't have a choice!" Clarke stated, raising her voice. "-They're not keeping us here for nothing, they want something from us, and we're not gonna stay here till we find out what it is."

It was not the first time one of the prisoners started this argument, but it always ended fast. No one was optimistic enough to think they'll be safe staying here, and Clarke and Galton managed to convince the others that, as risky as an escape was, it was still their best chance. She had took her fourth shot this morning, Ace his sixth, and nine of the others their fifth. Until now, the armored men hadn't seemed to change their comportment, and everything let the prisoners think their jailers didn't know the effect was getting less and less strong. It could have been an act, but Clarke couldn't find a good reason to it. The men in white had the Archers under control anyway, why would they need to trick them?  
Considering the prisoners, she thought once again that if they were going to escape, they needed to do it soon. The rations were barely enough to keep all of them alive, and the more they'd wait, the weaker they would get. It could do for the evasion itself, but none of them knew where their cell was. They might have to travel a long distance once out of here. She tried not to worry about that – it was no use to worry about things she had no control on, especially long before she could do anything about it. As Lexa said. Another thought she had tried to avoid. Lexa… Her throat tightened as she visualized the Grounder's Commandant.  
She had tried to deal with the Mountain men massacre. Get her mind around what she had done. Figure out whether it was the right thing to do, or if she had done something she had no right to do. After days in the woods, alone with her thoughts, she didn't know any better if any of it was worth it. In the end, it always came down to the fact that she had killed more than a hundred of people, guilty and innocents, and let die even more, good people, to save her own. How could she justify that? Did the fact that they were _her_ people justify to treat other persons like objects in her way?  
After hours obsessing about it, she was starting to see that the Mountain Men would have had to be destroyed anyway. She only meant for her people to survive, but the cohabitation would have been impossible. It still felt like she had no right to take such a decision, but it _needed _to be taken. It would eventually have been the Mountain Men survival against the Sky people's. But what was it about, then? Was that what life and death came to? The ones who had the best leader, the best soldiers? The law of the strongest?  
She had believed, with all her heart, what she said to Lexa, that she was only trying to get her people and herself to survive. But she knew now what that implied. Leadership. Being in position to make other choices like this one, maybe worst, in the future. Calculate with human lives, sacrifice people… She could never do it again. There were no predefined line to be drawn, when it would come to save and lead people, no easy answer that would work every time. She would have to take every one of those life and death decisions. No thanks. She didn't care for survival that much.  
But… She had been locked here only for a short time, but she could already see than except for Galton, no one would step up to take care of the others, to federate them. No one could have blame them, they were concerned about their own survivals, about their loved ones. But they wouldn't get anywhere if nobody was in charge, and clearly, there weren't a lot of volunteers. In camp Jaha, there were more of people ready to take the lead, but not that many either. Her mother, Kane, Bellamy… Her mother was smart, but she didn't understand that world. She wasn't sure Kane could be trusted. And none of them would let Bellamy in charge. Maybe, somehow, it had become _her_ responsibility to keep them all alive.

"-Clarke, they're coming back!

-How do you know?

-I can hear them, I think they're putting something on the wall to open it.

-Let's get ready, then. Ace, you go first, and whatever the impact it has on you, pretend you're KO. We can't let them know…

-I know, I know, we just pretend to be trying to grab food before everyone else and we get down when they use that damn thing.


	6. Chapter 6

Sander, Keagan and Leal, the three skyers accompanying Bellamy and Octavia, were walking ahead of the rest of the group, just far enough to be out of sight, but not of earshot. They were barely one hour away from Camp Jaha, now. Bellamy and her sister didn't exactly ask them to go away, but made clear enough that they wanted to talk with the Commander privately, and even though Keagan would gladly have stayed close enough to listen, the two others took the hint.  
"-Do you think they're talking about putting Bellamy in Kane's place?" Keagan asked, kinda hoping to make her friends curious. Sander opened frightened eyes and turned to Leal:  
"-You think they're gonna do it?  
-You heard them" she answered calmly. –"I think they'll try it only in last resort. It's really not their priority.  
-Well, we were looking for Clarke in order to put Kane back to his place, after all." Keagan insisted.  
"-Before we learn that unknown people were trying to murder us all by radioactivity interposed! It changes everything, at least for now.  
-I wouldn't mind if they were to do it," Keagan continued, as if Leal hadn't say anything. "-I'm not sure I'd like to follow Kane in time of war. He doesn't strike me as a trustable guy."  
"-That's just because he was the one that send you to jail back in the Arch, K…" Leal answered, a little smile on her face.  
"-I wish Clarke would be back," Sander intervened sadly. "-This would be settled…"  
"-Pff, as if Kane and the other Councilors were just gonna hand the power over to her," Keagan raged. "-We were finally free of the adults, and now that they're in charge again, they'll never let go!  
-Hush, both of you," Leal whispered suddenly.  
"-Oh, just because we disagree…"  
"-Shut up, K!"  
Keagan stopped talking, looking almost shocked. It was the first time ever Leal talked to her that way. Sander had obeyed immediately, and the three of them were now standing still, in perfect silence, Keagan and Sander clueless about what was going on. They both understood when few feet behind them, they suddenly heard people walking, people that weren't there a minute ago, and that weren't Bellamy and the others. There were six men in armor, running straight toward Bellamy's group. They hadn't even seen Keagan, Leal and Sander.  
"-What the…" Keagan started, before her voice died when she saw Leal pull her gun out.  
"-They're going to attack the others." The blue-eyed girl answered. "-Not letting that happen."  
She shot one of them before the two other skyers even had time to take their own guns, and the second after that, a real shooting had started, for the men in white armors had opened fire on Bellamy's group, the group was firing back, and the two sky girls were shooting all they could (Sander had a gun of his own, but had only vague notions about how to use it efficiently).  
The engagement was over in few seconds, and Keagan, Leal and Sander ran to the others, to find that three of Lexa's warriors had been killed, shot in the head, and another was lying on the ground, apparently not hurt, but unconscious. 

"-What was that?" Barked Maykl at Bellamy, his sword bloody from the man he just killed, the only one that hadn't been shot.

"-How would I know? You've seen as much as I have.

"-Question is who the hell were they? And why were they after us?" Octavia continued.

"-Hum, and how did they just teleported themselves? 'Cause I swear they weren't there two minutes ago, they appeared behind us out of nowhere," intervened Keagan, reaching to one of the armored bodies. The man still had his gun in one hand and a silver-colored rectangular object in the other. She leaned toward the dead man to take it, but Lexa quickly caught her arm.

"-Don't touch it. It's a weapon. That's what knocked Trey down"

Pushing Keagan away, Bellamy picked up the grey rectangle in a piece of tissue he ripped from his sleeve. The surface of the object was smooth, but the side the men were holding had a small handle and a switch button. He carefully grabbed it by the right side and pushed. Strictly nothing happened.

"-Maybe it has to be done on someone…

-That's what put them KO? That little thing?

-Hey, their guns look nothing like ours" Octavia signaled to her brother. Bellamy turned to Lexa:

"-Have you seen others men like them in your territory? Around the radioactive zones?

-No. I told you, no one saw anything that could explain it." She turned to Maykl: "-Take away their armors and helmets. See if there is anything useful.

-Let's keep the guns" Octavia said before proceeding to collect the said guns, as well as the rectangular weapons they all carried.

Lincoln and Maykl removed all the armors from the bodies, just to expose the similar suits of the six men, grey, one-pieced. The fifth one, though, had a chest pocket, reinforced with metal, closed.

"-What's that? Is it a radio?" Octavia asked to her brother when Lincoln started emptying it.

-It looks like it… We should give it to Raven when we get back to the camp. Maybe she will be able to give us information about their technology." Bellamy answered, before turning back to Lincoln, who just pulled a thick plastic envelope out of the pocket. Lexa quickly took it and opened it carefully. There was a pile of photographs inside, starting by her own.

"-That's Indra!" Octavia said, suddenly afraid, when Lexa went to the next picture. "-Is it…

-A list of the people they're about to take down."

After herself and Indra came every chief of the Coalition's clans, and some of their seconds. Red crosses were drawn on several of the pictures, not leaving much doubt about what happened to them. The Mist Clan leader, Derna, was crossed off, as well as the leaders of the Nomads. Lexa swallowed hardly as she kept turning the pictures, realizing that whatever was going on was even bigger than she feared. She came across two more crossed pictures –both important warriors of the Ice Nation, before finally ending this part of the list. She gasped of surprise at the sight of the next picture and didn't regain composure quick enough to stop the sky people around her to notice it.

"-What is it? Who is she?" Octavia asked, looking at the dark-eyed girl on the picture.

"-Someone who usually manages to stay enemy-free.

-Not enough information! If she's important to them, she is to us. Who is she? One of your warriors?

-No, she's not from one of my clans. She's… An informant. Goes by Wolf.

-Could she have information about them? Where can she be found?

-You don't find her. She shows up when she considers it useful."

The five next pictures were warriors she didn't know, not from the Coalition, judged by their tattoos. After them came the last bunch of pictures, starting with Thelonius Jaha. After his came Kane's picture, then Abby Griffin's. Octavia practically ripped the next one, Bellamy's picture, out of Lexa's hands, revealing the last one on the pile.

Clarke.

Lexa's heart skipped a beat before starting to furiously, painfully beat again, and she didn't even hear Octavia's exclamation, nor did she feel Bellamy take the picture from her shaking hands. She was praying for what she just saw not to make sense, even though the sight of it was burning in her mind.

The red cross on Clarke's face.

…..

The day they finally launched their assault, it all went very fast. The two men first tried to put the prisoners KO like they were supposed to, and by the time they realize it was useless, they were already submerged. They had only fired few shots before getting disarmed. Three prisoners immune against the KO devices, in first line had been killed, and two others harmed, luckily not seriously. A bullet had scratched Ace's cheek, and that was about all.

Outside of the grey room they had been locked in for so long, there was a long hallway of the same color, with no visible exit. Few kids quickly ran to the other end before coming back to the group, having found nothing.  
Galton and Clarke proceeded to take all the weapons of the guards, including the KO devices, and found, carried by one of the armored men, a different device that looked like a small radio with a series of switch buttons. Clarke looked at Galton, who nodded to her. The first two buttons had no effect, but when she pushed the third one, a flash of white light came from the wall in front of them.  
"-Try when pressing it against the wall!" Ace squawked with excitement. "-That's what we heard them do before the wall opened, every time!  
-Should we…

-Can hardly worsen the situation" Clarke decided. She didn't know if other guards were going to be warned about what happened, or even if they were already on their way. The prisoners had no time to waste if they wanted a chance to get out alive.  
"-Please, work," She said in a whisper so soft that she was the only one to hear it. "-Please."

Even if they weren't safer than the second before, she felt immensely relieved when the wall opened before them. The group rushed in the next room, then in the next hallway, pretty much at random, following the opening created by the device. Only few of them were armed, since there had been only two guards to take weapons from, but they didn't ran into other armored men, or anyone else. The complex seemed to be empty, which, even though it was good for them, was starting to make Clarke nervous. The armored men seemed to be so powerful, wasn't it weird that they couldn't at least find escaped prisoners?

After few minutes of random wandering through the complex, they finally arrived in a room different from the others. It was also grey, but way bigger than the others, and had a dozen of compartments. The device she was holding, the wall opener, flashed red light when she approached the first silvered compartment, and a small screen appeared on the wall. Galton and Ace by her sides, she carefully came close enough to look at it. There was a map on screen, and she immediately recognized Mount Weather, and the region of Earth she knew. There was a green point of light on the map, and she thought it was probably their current location. It wasn't as far away from camp Jaha as she had feared, but, if the map was faithful to the reality, there was a desert between them and the camp, and, to make things even more complicated, they were on an island.

"-Hey, hey, Clarke, when you arrived, you said that they travelled in a… Like, a moving, disappearing room, right? You think that's what it is? Like, we program it to go somewhere, and it take us to where the others are?"

For the first time in a while, she felt real joy, as well as hope, at Ace's guess. The compartment indeed looked exactly like the weird room the men had used to get her here.

"-There's only one way to find out," Galton said, next to her. "-Let's see how it works…"

He touched the screen, but didn't manage to do anything else than change the scale of the map, which now showed a larger part of land. He tried again, knocking two times next to Camp Jaha, then, as nothing happened, two times on the desert. They all jumped back, for the compartment in front of them just vanished.

"-Oh, Man, I think you did it!" Ace screamt, as the rest of the group burst in exclamations.

"-Seems like it won't get near the camp," Clarke said, "-But we'll go the closest we can, beyond the desert. Let's make several groups, we'll never fit into just one of them."

The Archers didn't need her to tell it twice, and rushed to the compartments. Few of them tried to argue that they had no idea if the room really went to the point they thought it did, and that it could as well kill them all or teleport them on the other side of the planet, but the majority was just eager to finally get out of here, and the faster the better.

The wall on the right side of the room opened as Clarke and Galton were starting to make the map appear on every compartment, and the armed Archers raised immediately their guns, ready to open fire at the armored men. But there was only one men, dressed not in armor, but in Arch's clothes that seemed new. He was shouting at them.

"-Don't do that! Wait! Don't do that!"

The armed Archers let their guns down, and no one said even a word, for they had all recognized the man in front of them.

Thelonius Jaha.


	7. Chapter 7

_« -I'm doing the best I can !_

_-It's not good enough!"_

As far as she could recall, those were the last words she exchanged with Clarke. Before that? Something as nice as "I'm fighting this war with you because I want my brother and our friends back. But after that, we're done".  
Be careful what you wish for, as they say.  
She and Clarke had never had anything better than a conflictual relationship –and that was in their best days. But in the end, despite Tondc and the debacle of Mount Weather, the only reason so many of the sky people were still alive was Clarke. And –that was not something Octavia was ready to admit before Mount Weather, but that she h ad thought through since Clarke left- she was grateful Clarke was the one to face the Tondc decision. Had Octavia been the one aware of the situation, she would have had to choose between her brother, all of her friends, and so many innocent people… She told Clarke that she would never understand that decision, but after all that had happened, at least she understood that there were no good choice to make. But she would never have the occasion to tell it to Clarke.  
It was such a strange feeling. She never enjoyed Clarke's presence, but the thought of never seeing her again –no, the thought that the girl didn't even exist anymore, that she was gone, definitely gone… It made her feel lost. So did the fact that they may be about to face a war, without her.  
_"I knew it was too dangerous"_ she thought for the umpteenth time. _"Leave by herself like that, of course, all she managed to do was get herself killed!" _She almost welcomed the anger. That was the easiest feeling she could have about Clarke. It was making her less vulnerable. And it was easier to blame Clarke than those unknown men, who came out of nowhere, that may or may not be related to the supposed attacks Lexa told them about. Lexa was good to get angry at, too. After all, none of this would have happened if she had kept her word. They would have won in a real battle, not in this awful massacre, Clarke wouldn't have left, she and Bellamy would be in charge…  
She finally snapped out of her thoughts to check on Bellamy. He was still sitting where he sat after they found the picture, and still had Clarke's in his hand, but wasn't looking at it. He was just staring at nothing, and Octavia could see he cried. She knelt in front of him, taking his hand in hers.

"-Bell…

"-I never should have let her go," He said with a broken voice. He raised his head to meet Octavia's eyes. "-I shouldn't have let her go.

She swallowed back the tears her brother's voice created.

"-Listen to me, Bell. This is not your fault.

-I could have made her change her mind, if…This wasn't on her. We both killed them…

-Bellamy! That's not on you, do you hear me? The only ones responsible are the ones who did that! OK? It's their fault she's… It's on them, on those people who are attacking us, and no one else."

It wasn't how she _felt_, because her reaction to grief was to look for anyone to blame, to be angry at, but she knew it was true anyway. These men had declared war to them by killing Clarke. Right now, though, Bellamy didn't seem in a warrior mood.

"-But if…

-Bell, it's not your fault," She said one more time, wrapping her arms around him. She felt him starting to cry again as he hugged her back.

The moment they all saw Clarke's picture, Bellamy took it from Lexa's hand, and his reaction gathered the sky people and Lincoln around him.  
Lexa stayed still, unable to move, or to feel anything for a second, as if the time, the world stopped. And then it started turning again and it hit her fully.

"_No, no, no…"_

She took few steps back, knowing that she needed to get away from all of them. Maykl moved with her, ready to accompany her, but she ordered him and her others warriors to stay where they were, barely conscious of the words coming out of her mouth. None of the sky people even noticed her. She stepped away, then ran away until she was sure no one could see or hear her anymore.  
She fell down on her knees more than she kneeled down, hit the tree in front of her with her fist, so hard that blood would start flowing on her wrist and arm in few minutes, and this was all the anger she could find in herself for now. Her hand lingering on the tree, her forehead against it, she almost choked on the cries she was trying to hold back and finally gave up the fight against her tears.

She cried until all of her body started to ache, until she didn't have a tear left to shed, not because she let herself cry, but because she couldn't, she physically couldn't stop, as if her mind was trying to mask the pain behind a river of tears. She tried to make herself stop, to stand up and go back to her warriors, as she needed to do, to act like a Commander, but every time she tried to breathe normally, Clarke's face appeared in her mind, crossed in red, and the pain took her breath away, and she stayed leaning against the tree, until she was out of strength.

After what seemed like all the time in the world, she was still kneeling in front of the tree, her eyes finally dry, trying to get herself up. She knew she had to go –she shouldn't have left in the first place- but she couldn't even imagine herself confront the sky people. Certainly not all their camp, and not even Bellamy and Octavia. She was already struggling against the tears, and…

"_She is dead because of me. That is what they are going to say, and they will be right. She is dead because of me."_

She let her head fall back against the tree as she thought back to Mont Weather, to the look Clarke had gave her, and tears started rolling on her cheeks again.

"-I'm sorry, Clarke! I'm so sorry…" She cried, her face convulsed by pain.

She heard a branch cracked with a loud noise behind her, and she jumped on her feet, terrified by the idea of one of her warriors, or even one of the sky people, seeing her like this, but there was no one to be seen, only the woods. She wiped the last tears of her face and took a deep breath, readying herself to face the others. The sky people lost their leader, by her fault, but –she didn't make that decision, it imposed itself to her- she wouldn't betray them again. They were Clarke's people, and from now on, she would protect them as her own.

"-Where were you?" Octavia spat at her when she finally joined them. "-Redoing your make-up? You really think that was necessary?

"-Don't talk to the Commander like that!" Maykl interposed himself between the two girls, ready to unsheathe his sword. Lexa calmed him down, before turning to Octavia.

"-War paints, actually. And if I am to go to your leader to engage your people and mines on the path of war, yes, Octavia, it is necessary.

-War? Wait, we know nothing of what is going on! What…

-We know that those men murdered my warriors and yours," Lexa said, hardening her voice. That was something she had forget about pain, how angry it could make a person. She locked her eyes on Octavia's. "-Blood must have blood.

-Blood must have blood," Octavia repeated, as Lexa expected. There was enough grounder in this girl to understand that. "-But that decision is not yours to make.

-No, that is your leader's place. But I hope you understand that this is your only choice. And that you will all be able to do what it takes." She looked at Bellamy on her lasts words. He planted his dark look into hers, his hand still clutching Clarke's picture, and he didn't need to answer her. He was ready to go on the war path. So was she.

…

When he entered the room they were all in, she had a hard time believing it really was him. Sure, on the map, they seemed to be in the direction he left for, but to actually see him here, not as a prisoner… The prisoners burst in exclamations, most of them questioning the Chancellor about him being here, some taking the time to blame him for everything that happened back on the Arch, and she had to make her way through all of them to arrive to him. He smiled when he saw her, smiled like he used to years ago, when Clarke and Wells were kids, and that smile made her feel like nothing could go wrong from now on. He would know what to do.

"-I knew you'd be brought here too, Clarke.

-Do you know where we are? And if those rooms really teleport to wherever we want them to?

-Oh yes, they do. But we must not use them, they are not meant for us. Come, all of you, you need to meet Her.

-Her? What… Why can't we use them? Is she in charge here? Is she the one who command the armored men?"

Every time she mentioned that "Her", Jaha's smile widened, so much that Clarke's feeling of safety shattered. She had to force herself not to take a step back, to not get away of this man that now seemed almost demented.

"-She, Clarke, She's gonna save all of us. She's gonna save the world, She who rules the city of lights. Come with me to meet Her. She'll make you see the truth.

He suddenly raised his head to Galton, who, while the Chancellor was talking to Clarke, got closer from the teleportation rooms.

"-What are you doing? I told you you must not use those!"

Clarke made her mind in the second she had.

"-Go in there, before they arrive! Go!

-No! You don't understand!"

Jaha rushed to the rooms, to Galton, but Clarke put herself in his way, grabbing him to stop him, giving Galton to send most of the prisoners away.

"-No!" Jaha shouted. He stepped back from Clarke, just to violently push her on the floor. She stood up immediately, but Galton had already clenched his fist and punched the other man. He was way taller than him, and Jaha fell down, with blood on his face. Clarke rushed to Galton, but stayed outside of the last teleportation room.

"-What are you doing? Come in, let's go!

-I can't leave him. Remember the map, and when you get to the camp…

-What are you talking about? You can't stay here!

-I can't leave him, Galton!" She almost scream. The boy gave her a scared look.

-Then let's take him while he's groggy, take him back with us.

-He' our only way to figure anything out about this place. Have you seen him? He won't tell us anything if you take him back there. I need to stay with him.

-Then I'll stay with you…

-They need you," She lowered her voice so Galton would be the only one to hear her. "-They need someone to lead them to our people. I'll be fine."

-At least take a gun, and one of those devices," He said, turning back to the others prisoners to get the items. "-Be careful, Clarke. Come back as soon as you can.

-When you get there, tell them everything we know about this place, OK? And tell… Tell my mother I love her.

-Clarke…"

She knocked on the screen, making the room disappear before he could finish, and turn to the Chancellor. To where the Chancellor was lying few seconds ago, actually, for there was no one else than her in the room. There was only drops of blood on the floor, and those stopped next to the wall. Realizing Jaha must have fled by opening the wall in front of him, she opened it back to follow him, just in time to see another wall down the hall closing again. She dashed to it, catching Jaha back behind the second wall.

"-Wait! Chancellor… Thelonius, wait! I'll come to Her, OK? They didn't want to stay, but I'm still here, I'll meet Her like you said!

-There is no time, Clarke!"

He continued running, clearly knowing where he was going, and after few other walls, they entered a room with a staircase. He rushed to them, followed by Clarke, and it took them just a handful of seconds to arrive upstairs. Clarke stopped, seized by the sight. It looked nothing like the level below, where every room looked the same. This was a corridor like she had seen in old pictures, pictures of the ancient world, richly decorated, the ceiling supported by white pillars. She didn't have time to stop long, though, for Thelonius was racing through the hallway, and she followed him to a backside door, that lead in a control room. At least she figured that's what it was, because there were a panel control full of switches and flashing lights, even though there were no screens.

"-Chanc… Thelonius, what is going on?

-We need to stop the rooms before they arrive! There is still time, but we must destroy them before it's too late!

-There are people in those rooms! Your people!"

He turned to her, his sweet smile back on his face, and Clarke thought it was indeed the same smile than where she was a kid. That nice smile who meant "you can't understand, because this is grown-up's matter."

"-Clarke, you will come to understand. Sometimes, we have to sacrifice a few to save the many."

She felt tears at those words, and her voice was trembling when she answered.

"-I know that. Better than you imagine. But this isn't sacrifice, it's murder. Tell why you have to do this.

-No one can know about Her, except the ones she called here. The world is…

-Why?" She screamed the word.

-Because they'll try to stop Her! They won't understand! They won't understand that it is all necessary, they'll fight back!

-What is necessary? Explain me! Who is she? What does she want? What will they try to stop?

-The radiations, Clarke. The last ones, the finishing strike. She couldn't end it before, but now she's able to, thanks to us, and everyone who serves Her will be rewarded in the city of Lights when the world is reborn."

Clarke's eyes widened with fear when she realized how crazy he'd become.

"-Thelonius…

-They need to die, Clarke. For a larger design.

-Thelonius, don't do this. You don't have to. Listen, I get that you believe…"

He reached for the panel control, and in the second, she raised her gun to him. He gave her a surprised look, but seemed to lose interest in it immediately.

"-Don't worry, Clarke, it's all for the best.

"-Please, don't make me do this. I swear I will, so please, step away.

-You don't understand, they're gonna ruin everything if we let them arrive where you send them! The world won't be reborn, our people won't be saved!

-You're not making any sense. They're going to get back to our people, and so can we, if you just…

-We mustn't go back to them, not yet! This isn't our destiny, don't you understand?

-No! No, I really don't. But you can… You can explain it to me, OK? Just step away from that, and we can talk. Please.

-We can't let them reach their destination! You won't do that, Clarke. I know you, I've known you since you were born. You're not gonna shoot me. You just have to trust me.

-You don't know me. Please… Please, Thelonius. Don't make me do this."

He looked at her, in her eyes. Well's father, looking at her, and her, a gun in her hands, ready to fire, looking back at him, tears threatening to flow. This man had been like family to her, all her life, and there they were, in a death or life situation, against each other. She shivered at the thought of what she had become. She was ready to shoot Well's father. And she knew she would really do it if it came to that.  
He raised his hand to the control panel. And she fired before he reached it.


	8. Chapter 8

Hi! To all those who waited weeks for the new chapters, sorry and thank you so much for reading!

Here's a chapter longer than usual, I hope you'll like it =)  
Feel free to comment even to say you didn't like it, critics are helpful too ^^

Again, thanks for reading the story, I hope you enjoy it!

"_Bellamy, you should go first, find Kane and explain him. He'll listen to you. After what happened, we can't just go in with Lexa on plain sight and surprise the Council with that. Are you gonna be OK?"_

Octavia's idea about confronting Kane first of all was good, but Bellamy didn't walk in happily. The Chancellor, as he thought, wasn't exactly happy about their self-assigned mission and had apparently prepared every line of his angry "welcome back" talk. It took Bellamy way more time than the urgency required to be able to start informing Kane about the new situation, and he couldn't avoid Abby's presence when he did, which was the last thing he wanted. He could hardly skip the kill list topic, and even though he tried not to go in the details –he kept insisting than it would be simpler to make Lexa and the others come in so they wouldn't have to tell everything twice- Kane wanted every detail before letting the Commander in. In spite of his efforts, the talk went straight to the pictures – who was on it, which were already dead. He talked about the Grounders, the ones of the Coalition and the unknown ones, but there really was no way around the news.

"-What about our people? Who's on that list? The Council, or you kids?

-Both of you, Jaha and I…

-What about Clarke? Was she on it too?" Abby pressed him when he stopped. Bellamy looked down when their eyes met, unable to look at her. How was he supposed to tell her what they saw on that picture? _"Oh, your daughter? They just crossed her off like a solved problem, and let's do the next one, now! They probably shot her like a dog and let her body rot somewhere in the woods, isn't that nice? Doesn't it fit to the local way?" _He knew it was even crueler to let Abby waiting, and that she would understand as well if he kept silent, but it felt like his mouth wouldn't move to say the words.

"-Bellamy?" She asked, and her voice was shaking with fear.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before facing Abby again, his jaw and fists clenched tight.

"-She…" He stumbled across his next words and had to start over. "-She was crossed off the list."

Kane had a movement of anger before turning to Abby, who had turned as pale as if all her blood left her veins. She didn't let him talk.

"-I need to see this" She said with a cold, steady voice. Her face showed no emotion whatsoever.

"-We all need to see this list" Kane agreed. "-Let's get the Commander in. Go tell her I'm coming."

Bellamy nodded, without a word. The last thing he saw when leaving the Council room was Kane turning to Abby in a comforting move, and Abby rejecting his hand, almost violently.

"-So?" Octavia asked the second he appeared in the place, not far from the camp entrance, where they stayed waiting for him. The Grounders and the three kids from the Ark looked at him, waiting for the news.

"-He's coming to talk to you," He said to Lexa.

"-Good.

-Clarke's mother's with him. I couldn't talk to him alone.

-You told her?" Octavia protested. He turned to answer her, but he had time to see Lexa's reaction. Not as impassive as he thought, and he wondered why that was.

"-What could I have said? She asked me directly, and she would have seen the pictures, eventually."

He couldn't tell by Octavia's expression if she agreed or if she was angry, but anyway she didn't protest more and gave him the pictures that she kept with her all the way to the camp.

An hour later, Lexa, Bellamy and Octavia had exposed the situation to the new council. The pictures were all across the table, and it made the number of red crosses even more obvious. The Councilmen had been easier to talk to than Octavia feared. None of them, except Kane, really trusted Lexa, especially not Abby, but they all understood that whatever was going on was a threat for them all. The radioactive sword was already under study, in the new Arch lab, and the first results had been promised in a short time.

"-Well, this is all worrying, but I'm not sure what the Commander expect from us exactly," One of the new Councilmen said. Besides Sinclair and Abby, there were two of them. The one who just talked was Adley, a small and very dark-skinned man, and the other, Volkov, a sixty years old woman who didn't waste time being nice.

-I'd say the first thing we should do is try to figure out who our common enemy is," Kane answered before Lexa had the chance to. "-Our technicians are studying the weapons you took from them, including the device that knocked your warrior out. He's in good hands, by the way, our… Healer is taking care of him. We are also trying to learn all we can from the sword you brought. Now, all we can learn from those items is information about their technology, not who they are or where they're based, or even why they are after us. We need to focus on this if we want to be able to counter them.

-How's that gonna go? We have no clue, no idea where to start. The Commander's forces weren't able to find anyone on the site of the Wastelands…

-There are a lot of people on that list that are still alive, and with us. If they want them dead, the men in white will attack them sooner or later. Every potential target needs to be prepared, and protected, never alone. For what we know, those men can teleport, so when they attack, we have to neutralize them very quickly, before they realize they are not the hunters anymore. Once we have done that, we keep them alive, take all they can use, weapons, devices, pictures, everything they have, and interrogate them. Harshly if we have to. Time for mercy passed when they killed one of us. Does that seem right to you, Commander?

-Yes. I will send messengers to Polis to communicate those orders. A part of the army should also get here. If this works, we will need reinforcement.

-You want an army of yours to camp outside our walls? I don't remember anything who inspires me to trust you, even less with an army ready to wipe us out." Adley said to Lexa, but really talking for Kane.

-If the Commander wanted to wipe us out, it would have been done weeks ago.

-Last time they needed us to get rid of the Mountains Men.

-And now they need us to get rid of the… Teleporting men.

-We have nothing but the Commander's word about that, and we all remember what that's worth. Have we seen one of those Wastelands? Have we seen those men?

-We did!" Octavia intervened. "-We have not only seen them but also killed them. Their bodies are still in the woods, still in their armors, and we brought their weapons back. Have you not seen those guns? They're not ours, and certainly not the Commander's. What do you want more, a demonstration? That device is very portable, it wouldn't take long if you want to try it.

-Octavia."

Octavia backed down at her brother's call, but didn't look away from the Councilman.

"-She's right, though," Kane said in a calm voice to the other Councilmen. "-This threat is real, and if the Grounders come to us for help, after the way things were left between us and them, it's not to be taken lightly.

-Yeah, well, and what do we do, if we captured those men, make them talk, attack their base, and right before the battle, most of our army makes a deal with the enemy and says bye?

-Those men burned five of my villages to the ground. They are not looking for a deal, and none of my people would make one with them.

-So did the Mountain Men! Have you forgot Tondc?"

Octavia saw Lexa's face become even colder. The Commander reached for her sword, causing every armed person in the room to grab their weapons. She paused to plant her eyes into Kane's, who hesitated a second, then signaled them to let go. Lexa unsheathed her sword and threw it on the table, in front of Adley. It landed with a violent metallic noise.

"-As for now, I put myself at your mercy. Every one of my warriors will do the same passed the doors of this camp.

-Heda…," Protested Maykl, looking like he just got struck by lightning. He hadn't say a word since the beginning of the meeting, but the eventuality of finding himself weaponless in a foreign territory was hard to consider. Lexa shut him up with a simple hand gesture.

"-Is that enough for you to trust our intentions?"

Kane looked at his colleague, raising his eyebrows.

"-We're basically having the Commander hostage, in this situation. Considering that she came to us almost alone, putting herself in danger for that, I'm ready to believe her." He turned to the three other Councilmen: "-What do you think?

-We should work together on this, at least for now," Sinclair approved.

-Agreed," Volkov said simply.

"-I guess we can try," Adley admitted, his eyes still going from the sword to Lexa and from her back to the sword.

"-Abby?"

Abby briefly raised her eyes to Lexa, then to Kane. She had a blank look.

"-We can't trust her, but she does need us right now. Until we know more, I think we should unite our forces to fight back."

Her voice, that they hadn't no hear until now, was completely emotionless. Octavia's low esteem for Clarke's mother was getting a little higher. She was certain Abby would be a useless mess after learning what happened to her daughter but she seemed to hold it together well enough. She was a mess, obviously, but at least she was still functional.

At the end of the meeting, the other Grounders dropped their weapons off, imitating Lexa by noisily throwing them on the Council table. It was an impressive quantity of metal, considering that there weren't that many warriors. Every clinking noise seemed to get directly to Adley's nerves, as each warrior deliberately threw his sword in his direction. A way to look intimidating even when surrendering, Octavia guessed. Or maybe they were just angry at him for forcing them to abandon their swords, knifes and bows.

Bellamy took command of few guards to find and bring back the corpses of the men in white they killed in the woods, in case they could learn anything else of them, and Octavia send Keagan, Leal and Sander to Raven, to tell her to contact the other team they send after Clarke and cancel their mission. Wandering across the woods was a thing, do it while killers were susceptible to appear out of nowhere was another, and their search became pointless anyway. Maybe it wouldn't have been if she kept looking for Clarke that morning. She knew it was useless to think that kind of things –whether it was true or not, what did it change now?- but the thought still stung.

"-Chancellor, we have a situation at the doors."

A guard just entered the room, his gun at rest position, but with the security unlocked.

"-What's going on?

-A Grounder rider asks for permission to come in, Sir."

Kane turned to Lexa: "-One of your warriors arriving late?

-No, none of us had a horse. We let them at the limit of the Mountain territory and they are being taken back to Polis as we speak. What clan is this rider from?"

The soldier looked at her like she just spoke another language.

"-We should go see what this is," Kane said. "-Commander?"

Octavia went with them to the doors. On their way, half of the population of the camp was able to see Lexa and recognize her, and by the time they arrived to the door, all the Archers knew the Grounder Commander was back. Outside the camp, holding the reins of her horse while getting rid of her all weapons as the guards asked, was the girl they saw on the pictures, the one Lexa had called Wolf. The Commander turned to Kane.

"-We should let her in. She is not from one of my clans, but it is possible she has information.

-How's that? Who is she?"

Lexa didn't have time to answer him, for the girl outside saw them coming and called to them.

"-Chancellor Kane, I presume? I have information that you may want to hear. Now, I'm ready to tell them from here, but I think it would be simpler if I could come in. I'm completely weaponless, now. Which is not a reassuring state to be in, but I see the Commander is as well, so…"

At Octavia's surprise, the girl smiled to Kane.

"-And you are?" He asked, a little disconcerted.

"-Wolf. From the South lands, not that it really matters.

-And what do you have to tell us?"

The girl stopped smiling.

"-There are few dozens of your people currently wandering in the desert, looking for this camp, and they do not look like they are gonna make it on their own. They say they have been prisoners of Overseas teleporting men. You might want to help them get there, lot of them are starved and dehydrated.

-Do you have any proof of what you're saying? Something that guarantee us than we won't be walking into a trap if we go rescue them?

-I have the names of some of them, and you have me as guaranty, since you have guns pointed at me and I don't have any weapon.

-Which names?

-They're being led by a boy named Galton Willis, and his friend Ace Landers. Look, I could go back there and bring one of them on my horse so he could tell you all this himself, but that really looks like a waste of time. Again, they're starving. Apparently, they have been lost few days before the nomads spotted them and told me about it when I arrived, and they have been prisoners a while too. Since the Arch landed, they said.

"-Chancellor, I think we should send rescue. We have the Commander at our mercy, no Grounder would risk her life by lying to us. I don't think those Overseas men need to set traps if they want to attack us anyway."

Kane took a moment to consider Sinclair's opinion before making a decision.

"-Miller, you'll lead the rescue team. Stay in contact with us at all time. Commander, are you ready to guarantee Wolf's words with your life?"

Lexa looked at Wolf through the electric grilling, and Octavia saw the grounder outside articulate a silent salutation to the Commander, with half a smile.

"-Is it true?" The Commander asked. The girl answered with an almost offended tone.

"-Of course. I don't go around spreading false information. You know that.

-So? What do you say, Commander?

-Maykl and I will stay here with you while Wolf leads Miller's team to your people, and we will talk more when they are safe. Is it all right for you?

-Absolutely. Miller, with me. We have to get the radios ready. Commander, the guards will escort you to the Council room. It would be appreciated if you agreed to stay there until the rescue team comes back.

….

Jaha collapsed to the floor, his hand reduced to a bloody mass of flesh, jets of blood flowing out of his wrist like water under pressure. There already was a pool of blood on the floor by the time Clarke kneeled down to him. Now that he wasn't an immediate danger, she let medical reflexes take over, and as fast as she could, she garroted his arm with a piece of tissue she ripped of his shirt. He was panting with pain, but still rambling about "Her", whoever the hell she was, telling Clarke she had no idea what she had just done. Truth be told, he was right. She had absolutely no idea of what she had just done. She really thought she was going to kill him, but at the last second, she just couldn't. She just kept thinking to Wells, and in the end, no matter what she had already done, she couldn't bring herself to kill his father. Even if her friend was dead, she couldn't do that. She kept hearing his voice, his steady voice, and imagining the way he would look at her right now. She was crying while saving Jaha's life, and didn't even know why. Because of Wells, because he was lost to her forever, or because her so righteous friend would be horrified by the person she became? Because of all that she did, because she just shot someone she had known all her life with almost no hesitation?

Something on the panel control made a strident bip, causing Jaha to get up on his feet, despite Clarke's efforts to keep him laying down.

"-NO! No, no!"

He almost threw himself on the panel, pushing desperately the button he had tried to reach before she shot him, but without results. He kept pushing it again and again, not caring about his hurt hand, not even caring about Clarke.

"-Thelonius, let's go. You can't do anything about it, now. It's done. Come with me. We can get back to our people."

She tried to keep a calm, soft voice, fearing he would completely loose it if he stayed this feverish. He turned to her so quickly she jumped back, definitely frightened. With the quantity of blood he lost, he should have been barely able to stand, but there he was, steady on his feet, looking ready to kill her any minute, crazy eyes injected with blood fixed on her.  
He rushed in her direction, but passed her like he didn't even saw her anymore, and almost crashed against the wall in the other side of the room. He picked up, with his valid hand, the device he used to open all the walls and pushed it against the wall, on several places, following a precise pattern. Clarke, behind him, let him do his thing. Luckily, he would calm down if she let him time to, and she could take him back to the teleportation room. She was afraid she would have to do it the hard way, though.  
The wall didn't split in two like the others did; instead, it just faded away, letting screens appear on the real wall behind. There were every room of the basement onscreen, the one they had been kept into, the teleportation room, the ones they ran across in their escape…  
And another room full of people. Clarke's eyes widened when she spotted them on screen. They weren't as many as the Arch's prisoners, maybe twenty people. Grounders.

"-What…

"-We need to go faster. She'll be pleased when she wakes up.

-Wait, what are you gonna do?"

Before she could stop him, he pulled a small lever on the wall. At first, nothing happened, and Clarke relaxed a little. Maybe he really was too far gone for his actions to make any sense. She realized the smaller screen was actually a map of the complex, with red dots in movements that she supposed to be the men in white. Weirdly, none of them seemed to be moving fast, or in their direction. Suddenly, the Grounders on screen started collapse for some, fall on their knees for others. Several seemed to be screaming, while few others started having seizures. Next to her, Jaha finally looked like he was calming down.

"-What did you do to them?

-Clarke, it's all for the better, you'll…

-What did you do? How do we stop it?

-We don't! They…"

He stopped when she pulled her gun right in front of him, few inches from his forehead.

"-That's enough, now. Tell me how to help them, now!"

She felt her heart sink when he simply nodded, that awful smile back on his face. He would never talk. He would rather be shot by her son's best friend than save those people. She felt tears roll on her cheeks again when she realized how helpless he was.

"-Sit," She ordered him. He obeyed quietly. Apparently, now that he did what "She" wanted him to do, he was OK with whatever came. He tried to get back up when he understood what she had in mind, though, but not fast enough to avoid the butt of the gun. She hit him in the head, hard enough to knock him down for a while, but hopefully not enough to kill him or even injure him seriously. She tied him up as fast as she could despite her shaking hands, took his device, and took time to memorize as much as she could of the map. Enough to get to where the Grounders were kept and to the teleportation room. If she was able to save the Grounders, they could help her to get Jaha back to the camp. Wishful thinking, but she really had no other idea. She couldn't let him here to be consumed by his craziness, nor could she kill him.

The Grounders were all alive when she opened the wall, but almost none of them standing. Several of them were screaming meaningless things about the city of lights. One of those still standing, a thirty-something woman, stared at Clarke.

"-I recognize you," She said, trying to mask the pain she was obviously still feeling. Whatever it was that Jaha did to them, it stopped when Clarke opened the wall, but its effects were still visible on the Grounders. "-You're the sky princess. The Commander's ally.

-I'm not…" Clarke didn't expect those words to hurt so much. _Commander's ally…_ But it felt like the woman just hit her. Somehow, since Mount Weather, she barely thought about Lexa, like it just had been relegated to deeper layers of her mind, and she just realized now that it probably had been some kind of mechanism of defense. Those three words had been enough make it shattered, to make her think to Lexa's hand on hers, to Lexa's presence by her side… She furiously stopped herself before going back to their confrontation at the door of Mount Weather.

"-I'm just Clarke," she continued before the Grounder woman could notice how her words affected the blonde girl. "-Are the others good enough to walk? I know how to get away from here, but we need to be fast, and there is someone we need to help upstairs."

The woman considered her with that look Grounders had when they didn't trust someone, a look almost animal, gauging the person in front of them.

"-What are you doing here?

-I was captured, same as you. We were kept on another room and managed to escape…

-How?

-Look, we don't have time for this! The men in white can get here any moment, or this… Thing that just happened to you could start again, for all we know!

-And how do I know you're not with her?

-You know… Do you know who "She" is? What she wants?"

She probably looked sincere enough, for the Grounder woman finally departed from that look and answered.

"-I know she's the one in charge here, but for what she wants… I've only saw her once," She looked almost lost when she continued her sentence. "-Right before she left through a wall.

-They have devices that made the walls opened. I got one…

-No, you don't understand. She walked through it. The wall didn't… open. She walked through it like there was nothing on her way.

-What? You mean…" She stopped in the middle of her sentence. "-What did she said to you?

-That we were going to "see the truth", that if we served her, we would be reborn in the city of lights… Just a bunch of bullshit.

-Did anyone of you touched her? Did she touch anything?

-I tried," A young grounder intervened. He had been standing behind to the woman Clarke was talking to and looked to her, asking for permission to tell what he knew. The woman nodded.

"-I tried, but my hand got through her. I don't think she was really there, she was just a talking image."

The grounder woman looked at him, then got back to Clarke.

"-Does that enlightens you?"

Clarke took a look around the room. Some grounders were helping the ones still weak to get up, and they were, in majority, ready to go.

"-Maybe. I need to get back upstairs before we go.

-For that "someone" you want to help.

-Not only. If… That woman might be some kind of hologram. If she is, then there's a computer, somewhere, who controls her, who _is _her. If we can shut it down…

-What's a computer, for a start?

-Oh, hum, a machine. A very intelligent machine, and…" She stopped a second. A very intelligent machine, yes. How intelligent, exactly? Jaha referred to "Her" as the one in charge. What if she, the hologram, or rather the computer generating her, really was in charge? They lost lot of technological knowledge after the nuclear launches, but Clarke knew before the last war, intelligent, autonomous machines were a thing. AI. "-Destroying it might stop her, whatever she's trying to do. Which, according to the little I know, seems to be irradiate Earth for good.

-You think you can stop all this?" Interrupted on of the others Grounders. "-Do you believe her, Derna?" He asked to the woman.

"-The Commander trusted her. That's enough for me.

-We got to get out of here. Some of us need a healer. We can't be running around to take down an enemy we know nothing about.

-That may be our only chance to know anything about it," Clarke protested. "-I can take you where we can send the wounded back home, I just need few of you to stay.

-Jak and I will stay with you," Derna said, designating the boy next to her. She then turned to the man who talked to her "-Terell, you should make sure all of them get away, and go back to Polis as fast as you can, to inform the Commander.

-Yes. Lead us to the exit, Clarke of the Sky people.


	9. Chapter 9

Nineteen years before the Arch fell from the sky, Willos, Commander of Polis, died.

Few decades and Commanders before that, it had had been an important title: the Commander ruled the entire land from the Snow Plains to the South lands, hundreds of villages, dozens of clans. By the time this Commander died, though, wars had teared the land apart and the only place several clans lived in peace under the authority of one was Polis, the ancient capitol. The Commander was more the residue of decades of tradition than the actual leader his predecessors have been.

However, the Commander was replaced by Henra, the reincarnation of the previous one, and the new Commander's first action was to look for kids born the day Willos died. On all the territory, there were more than twenty of them. When Henra herself would die, all of those who survived would be brought to the Capitol and they would fight against each other; the reincarnation of Willos would be the last one standing and would become the new Commander. In between, none of them would know who they might become, and they would grow up like any warrior.

Amongst those kids were twins born from two warriors of the Woods clan, a boy named Xandar and a girl named Lexa. They both had green-blue eyes and were both healthy. Lexa was younger from a few minutes, but she stood up first, crawled first, walked first, and talked first. From the moment they started to really walk on their own, Xandar followed her sister everywhere, which led the older kids to pull them out of the river few times. A short time before the twins turned two, Lexa tried to follow one of the kids from their village in his climb of a tree. The kid, amused by that little girl who was barely more than a baby, helped her get higher. When he climbed down, she followed, and of course, fell from the tree. Her brother scream even louder than her, alerting everyone around. Her arm was broken pretty badly, and her father took her to the closest healer, few miles away. The healer, worried by the fracture, wanted to keep her a day or two, because she was so small and her body not strong enough to fight a possible infection. Her father left her saying he'd be back two days later. It was the last time she would ever see anyone of her family, and she was young enough to forget everything about them. The next night, another clan attacked the village she was born in and slaughtered every man, woman and child.

She ended up staying in the village of the healer, raised with a bunch of others orphans by the clan. It was not a rare situation, since the clans were in constant war, and as she was growing up, she forgot she ever lived with her family. The clan was her family. Orphans tended to train even harder than the others, though, and by the time she was seven, she had already had her part in the war. The winter of her eighth year was exceptionally cold and snowy, and she wasn't exceptionally careful. A fight with another future warrior on the frozen river ended up in a forced swimming party. The third kid, more prudent, stayed on the bank, and ran to the village to get help. The two kids in the water tried to pull themselves out, but ice was already forming again around them, too slippy for them to get a hold on it. When people from the clan arrived, they sent the lightest person amongst them, tied to a rope, to get the two children. Lexa's skin was almost blue with cold when the woman pulled her out of the water, and her body didn't even had the strength to shiver anymore. They never managed to get the other kid warm enough, and he died short after it. The warrior who trained the youngest kids, Gustus, took the little girl in his arm and strongly rubbed her until colors showed on her face again. He took her at his home, made a fur bed next to the fire place and buried her under blankets before leaving to get the healer. His adoptive daughter, Costia, an orphan from another clan that he found after a battle when she was for years old, stayed home with Lexa. She was a seven years old angry-looking girl, with a skin that seemed almost golden at the firelight, and long straight hairs, as dark as coal. She was suspiciously watching at Lexa, but with an ounce of curiosity. Lexa weren't able to pay much attention to her, and the little girl kept watching her until the healer came. He checked on her, and got out, with a dark face, to talk privately to Gustus. While they were outside, Costia finally approached her. Lexa looked at her blankly, too weak to react. The girl planted her eyes, brown but so dark they looked black, in hers.

"-Are you gonna die?" She asked harschly.

"-Maybe," Lexa answered softly, thinking about the other kid and his face so colorless you could have lost him in the snow if he hadn't been dressed with furs. Costia's face changed to an expression Lexa saw for the first time but that would become familiar to her in the next years. Her mouth became so thin it was barely more than a strict line and she frowned, which made her eyes look even darker. To an adult, he would have been funny to see such an intense expression on a child's face, but to another kid, it was impressive of determination.

"-Everybody dies," Costia said defiantly. "-You suck if you do."

On those words, she sat against the furs with a scowling face. As Lexa would learn later, almost everyone Costia knew had been killed when an entire troupe of deer had been poisoned by another clan. The deer looked healthy, but most of her clan had been poisoned by it. It took several days for the poison to start acting, and by that time, almost everyone had eaten some. The survivors had been killed by the clan that poisoned them few weeks later. Some kids would have been broken, some would have tried to forget, Costia reacted by being furious about pretty much everything, and especially death. In the world they lived in, it wasn't an easy attitude. When Gustus had brought Lexa in, she kind of took her possible death under her roof as a personal insult, and thus, decided to make her own mission to ensure Lexa's survival.

She stayed with Lexa almost every second of every hour, forcing her to talk in the first hours, when falling asleep could have meant she'd never wake up, forcing her to eat and drink, watching her sleep. When Lexa got better, she left Gustus's place, but she never left Costia. The two girls were always seen together, they trained together, knew pretty much everything about each other. The year after that, the leader of the Wood Clan, Anya, came to the village, and saw an older kid take on Lexa (he was usually in charge when it came to the youngers, and nor Lexa nor Costia were OK with it. Lexa ended up defying him, and he thought it would be an easy fight) and loose without contestation. At the end of the fight, Lexa was covered of blood, and very little was hers. Costia stood right next to Lexa all the time Anya talked to her.

Lexa hardened under Anya's mentoring, became less of the wild kid she had been and more of a real warrior. She loved to fight, and she loved being the Chief's second instead of an unknown kid that almost no one cared for or even knew. For the three next years she learned to fight better than most and to lead, even if it was only small units Anya let her in charge of. She kept catching every opportunity to go back to the village she grew up in, to spend time at Gustus's place. She would tell everything that happened to Costia when they were just the two of us, and she could see Costia becoming a warrior on her own. There was something wild about her that Lexa admired and that made miracles in fights. Lexa once saw her bite her opponent so he would let her go, letting her free to… Well, Costia's way was too savage to even be called winning. She was still this furious little girl that Lexa met.

When Lexa turned thirteen, Henra, Commander of Polis, was killed by her second, who hoped to take the commandment over. It didn't went exactly as he planned, considering that he died skinned by the population of Polis. Messengers from the city were sent to every clan –even at war, informers from Polis were guaranteed safety, which was one of the things that prevented the land to fall into complete chaos. One of them was send to Anya with a special message. She was in the village Lexa grew up in when he arrived. He stayed a while alone with Anya, before she had Lexa joining them under her tent.

"-You're gonna leave?" Costia almost screamed when Lexa told her what the messenger was here for.

"-I don't have a choice, I was born the same day Willos died. Same as my brother…" She stopped there for a second. The messenger said she had had a twin brother, but she had absolutely no memories of that. It was weird to think about it. She didn't even know she wasn't born in this village. "-I'm to be confronted to all the others that were born that day. I'll come back, you know. There is no way any of them can beat me.

-Right, the Commander coming here, that happens all the time," Costia raged at her. "-You'll never come back if you leave with him and you know it!

-What would you have me to do? I don't have a choice, Costia! I…

-You have the choice! You could not go, but look at you, you're literally… Wriggling with excitation!

-Oh, I'm sorry to be excited to finally be able to change things! I'm sorry I'm excited to not spent my entire life in this village, waiting to be killed in a battle or another, sorry to maybe have a chance to actually have a life that is not only about surviving until the next day! What do you want me to do, exactly?

-I want you to stay!" Costia screamed the words before Lexa could continue. Her tears shook Lexa up from head to toes.

-I can't," she said softly. They ended up loudly arguing for few minutes, but the essential had been said in the beginning of their fight. In the end, Costia was the one to walk away, spitting at Lexa that she hated her and that it was perfect that Lexa was gonna leave and never gonna show her face here again. Lexa, in tears, practically begged her to not leave like that, to not let her leave for Polis on those words. And yet, her furious girl didn't looked back while leaving.

The next day, when Lexa left with the messenger and the warriors from Polis, Costia didn't even show. She couldn't believe it was going to end up like that, and until they really crossed the limits of the village, she was sure Costia was gonna catch them and really say good-bye. She looked so miserable when it didn't happen that one of the warriors told her to get over leaving mommy and daddy and start acting like a grown-up. She didn't answer, but offered him the most disdainful face a thirteen years old girl could possibly pull off. On the third day of travel, one of the warrior heard noises behind them, and two of them went to inspect their tracks. They came back quickly, one of them holding Costia in the air by the collar of her jacket like a mother cat holding a kitten.

"-We have a follower," He said to the messenger. Costia looked right at Lexa with her fierce expression, but looking a little ashamed too.

"-I don't hate you" She mumbled at her intention. Lexa couldn't help but smiling to her. Costia smiled back, a rare sight. She had a smile that made her all face light up, even her eyes seemed to sparkle.

"-Get rid of this," The messenger said, missing the exchange between the two girls.

"-No!" Lexa intervened. "-She can stay as with us as long as she wants.

-You don't get to decide that kind of…

-Don't get this wrong, I am your Commander. Beating the others is just a formality. If you disobey me now, this is treason and I'll make sure you're punished for it as soon as we get to Polis."

The messenger and the warriors looked at each other, and he slightly smiled. "-Kitten's got claws, I see. You might not do as bad as I thought. The girl can come with us if she wants to."

The two girls rode next to each other for the rest of the trip. Costia had lived most her life in the village they left, but she made clear than it didn't really matter to her if Lexa wasn't there too.

"-What about Gustus?"

Costia turned to the road behind them. "-You know, I think he might be on our tracks right now. I did left him a message to say where I was going, so…"

And he was indeed following them, and when they arrive to Polis, they both were by Lexa's side.

Three of the others kids born the same day as her killed each other, and she killed the two lasts, easily enough. At thirteen years old (she turned thirteen only two weeks ago), she became the youngest Commander ever, and showed that she was fit for the job quickly enough.

The first battle was a nightmare to her. One clan had started attacking villages of farmers, and it seemed like no one would be capable to stop them. The previous Commanders had let every clan handle themselves, retrenching in Polis and ruling only the city, ignoring the wars outside. Lexa couldn't do that. She didn't even consider it for a second. Her position was completely instable, for she came from a lost village hundreds of miles away from the city where she didn't know anyone, and because of her age, and when they understood she was serious about fighting this clan, people of Polis split in two camps. There were the ones who thought the situation was good as it was, as long as they were safe behind the walls of the city and the clans only fighting each other and still respecting Polis, and those who saluted her warrior spirit, and were ready to arm themselves and go on the path of war. The first camp was advantaged by the fact that the Mist clan, against whom she wanted to fight, was one of the more powerful, and the forces of Polis might not even be enough to stop it. One night she was up late, a map of the region on the table of her room, with pawns figuring the units of warriors, one of the Henra's ex advisor came to her. He said a rider from the South lands, who had been helpful to Henra before, was asking to see her, and had information that could be useful for the fight. Gustus and Costia by her side, as always, she met with the rider, Wolf. She had maps of the region as well, but on hers, every soldier from the Mist Clan was localized, and when, after talking to her for a while, Lexa send small teams of scouts make sure those information were true, they came back confirming everything the girl said. To know all of this guaranteed them an easy victory, but it barely looked like a fight when they attacked. All the strategy of the Mist clan had been made useless, and it was more of a massacre than a battle. Of course, her position was made far better by that victory, but she couldn't help thinking about all the kids she orphaned, of all the villages she left without protection by slaughtering their warriors. Against the will of many, she created special units of warriors in charge of the protection of all the villages around the capitol, while keeping fighting the war against the Mist clan. Most of their warriors died in the first battles, but all those who survived swore to get revenge, and most of their villagers joined them. In the beginning of autumn, even though she offered them mercy if they accepted to stop the fight and recognize her authority, they attacked one of the villages she placed under her protection and sent her the skin and head of her messenger. She knew she couldn't let them continue. A part of the clan already joined her, but those who still resisted were too much of a danger to be left alive. When Wolf found their base, she led her entire army there and ordered them dead. All of them. The village had burnt for days. That was when she really became Commander.

The next years, she began to unite the clans under her banner. Some of them saw all it could bring to them and willfully made her their leader, some of them had to be fought. Every battle was hard on her, but on the land she managed to pacify, people had never been safer. Of course their world was still a dangerous place, but at least, those who lived in her lands didn't risk to see their homes burned to the ground and their families massacred. Costia and Gustus were still closest to her than anyone else, but she could rely on more people in Polis, and even trust some of them. The chiefs of the clans she united were amazingly loyal once they followed her into battle. They all respected strength, and Lexa was by far the strongest Commander in decades.

At an after battle feast, the second of the River Clan, a fierce warrior, for what she had seen, clearly attempted to hit on her. She was looking for Costia in the crowd when he came to her, and as she wasn't completely uninterested, she let him continue for a while. She wasn't particularly thrilled by the idea, but why not? He was a good fighter, loyal, quite handsome… It didn't went further that night, but when she left, she thought it might get somewhere. When she got to her room, Costia was already in it, sitting cross-legged on Lexa's bed.

"-What's going on?

-Nothing. I just barely seen you tonight –and the days before- so I figured I'll catch you here. How's your shoulder? It looked painful last time.

-It's just a bruise. Let me some space, I want to rest and sleep few days."

Costia laughed. Lexa had always been the only person she gave that shining smile to, the only person she laughed with, and even though Lexa had been more sociable when they were kids, since she became Commander, Costia was the only one she allowed herself to be relaxed around. There was no one else she could trust enough to show herself as anything else than the ruthless Commander she had to be.

She cleaned the war paints from her face under Costia's look and started to take off the pieces of her armor.

"-Let me."

She accepted with a tired sigh and let herself fall on the bed while Costia removed the pieces from her legs, chest and shoulders. She went behind Lexa on the bed to detach the pieces from the back, and checked at Lexa's shoulder at the same time. She had been hit during a battle, and her armor had prevented a wound, but the shock had let a dark bruise.

"-It's fading, but…

-But?

-Just, don't ever forget to put on your armor, please.

-I wonder how I could ever leave the palace without you checking I'm fully protected anyway.

-Someone has to. You're the Commander. But maybe your river guy will do it for you, next time."

Lexa giggled, but stopped right away when Costia softly pressed her shoulder.

"-Does it still hurt?

-Yes."

Costia tried again at several points of Lexa's skin, and her touch got lighter every time, almost caressing. She went down, slowly caressing Lexa's shoulders and back, in a move that had nothing medical anymore. Lexa realized her upper body got tensed, feeling Costia's touch with an intensity that made her shiver. Her heart had started to race in her chest. She turned to the other girl behind her, the tension spreading to all her body when she faced her, her eyes in Costia's beautiful dark eyes.

"-Costia…"

The girl leaned to her before she could finish –not that she had the slightest idea of what she was going to say anyway- and kissed her. Lightly, just brushing her lips with her. Lexa had never thought of her that way, but the second it happened, she knew she wanted more. Her entire body was screaming for more. She kissed Costia back, not so lightly, her hands searching for her. Few occupied minutes later, she let the girl lengthen her on the bed, still kissing.

In all her life, Lexa never felt as happy as that night with Costia. She couldn't get enough of her, and wondered why on Earth they waited so long for that, when it felt so right and so good (and also where Costia had learned some of the things she did. That question she never had an answer to). Even after she literally overwhelmed her with pleasure several times, Costia wouldn't stop kissing her, caressing her, telling her she loved her and Lexa would answer to all of it, drunk with the contact of Costia's skin on hers, of her body against hers. When she fell asleep in Costia's arm, her furious girl was still saying her sweet nothings, gently brushing her hairs. It was the first time in years Lexa slept that deeply, not ready to jump on her feet at every threatening noise, but really sleeping, letting everything go for the night.

The next year was the one Lexa truly thought she could have it all. Most of the Clans stopped the fight against her, and most of her journeys were about the establishment of a truce with one of them, or to receive the sworn loyalty of another. That year, she got why Henra had used Wolf. Even though the informant seemed less than trustable, for no one really knew where she came from or how she had most of her information, she was the best person to send to the chiefs of the Clan to negotiate, as she already knew a lot of them and had been useful to them as well.  
That was the year the Coalition was really born.  
That was the year she grew even closer from Costia, the year she fell desperately and completely in love with her. Costia would almost never leave her side, and she was such a good second to have with her. She wasn't really tall, but still managed to have an impressive presence, and didn't let anyone talk even a little impolitely to Lexa, imposing respect among the outsiders to the Coalition. Usually, her hand on the pommel of her sword and her best angry expression when she was standing next to Lexa's throne were enough to silence anyone. No one was ever there to see the smiles they address to each other, their knowing looks –although, once, as one of her advisors told her something about the Clan chief they were about to meet, Costia gave her one of those looks, reminder of something they laughed about few days ago than the advisor involuntarily made a reference to, and Lexa had all the difficulty in the world to stay serious. She had to avoid looking at Costia for the rest of the meeting, and knowing than Costia was doing exactly the same made it even harder.

At the end of this year, the two only major problem remaining, in military terms, were the Mountain Men, near to the Wood Clan territory, whose reapers seemed to be unstoppable and kept making this territory one of the most dangerous of the Coalition, and the Ice Nation. The Ice Nation really was several Clans that got together few years before she became Commander, and they had been relatively peaceful, with each other and towards the closest Clans, but they felt threatened by the growth of the Coalition, and Lexa couldn't get through to their leader, even with Wolf's help. She had no intention to take on them as long as they stayed in peace –she was certainly not to throw her people into an unnecessary war- but despite all her efforts to make their queen aware of that, the Ice Nation was readying itself to war.

The first engagement was more of a set-up than a real battle. Lexa was travelling between villages next to the frontier, to make sure they were all well defended, should the war really happen, and Costia, leading a smaller unit of warrior, was supposed to join her just a day later. They were warned by a messenger, sent alone when the battle began, than the Ice nation finally made its move and attacked Costia's unit near the frontier. No matter how quick Lexa and her warrior travelled, it was too late when they got there. The battle was still going on, but it really was a lost cause, and dozens of Ice soldiers separated them from Costia. Lexa's warrior had to stop her from throwing herself in their hands –she would have, killing as much as she could, killing her way to Costia, even if it had cost her her life- they had to be three grown men to hold her.

They took her. They took her as Lexa was screaming her name from the bottom of her lungs, screaming as if her life depended on it.

The Commander that got to the village that night was a complete mess. She sent messengers to the Ice Queen, she sent Wolf with them, with orders to do anything to convince the Queen that the Coalition had no interest in war, and wanted nothing more than pacific cohabitation. She offered to meet the Queen on her territory, she offered the lands in the frontier to prove her will for peace. The messengers came back saying that the Ice Queen was ready to consider a meeting, if Lexa agreed to come with only her most trusted advisors, and no army. Wolf told her that the situation at the Queen's court was tense, and that even if the Queen wanted war, she wasn't that followed by the others leaders of the Nation. She would have the last say, but there was a hope for peace. However, none of those Lexa send managed to learn anything about Costia.

Before she got there, the subordinates of the Ice Queen, the ancient chiefs of the Clans that united to form the Ice nation, reunited in a secret group and locked the Queen away, taking command of the Nation to avoid the war. They believed that Lexa wanted peace and knew war would only bring pain and death to both of their people. When she arrived, they all went to meet her, humbles, reminding her that their former Queen was the only one to want war, the only one to have bad intentions about Lexa, and that their only wish was to leave in peace. As such, they were ready to suffer the price of the lives that had been taken the day their army attacked Costia's unit, and would of course return her second's body so she could be buried with all the honors due to a warrior.

She doesn't hear the rest of it.

Later, she'll learn that the Ice Queen had Costia tortured, that they killed her in an infamous way. But right now, the only thing she can understand is that Costia's dead. The when, why and how don't matter. Costia's dead. At that moment she remembers the first thing Costia ever told her, the seriousness of her eyes, and the pain is her chest becomes so huge she doesn't think she'll survive it. But she does, one second and another, and time keeps passing as the pain becomes a living monster in her. It's so big she can't even face it, but there is something –the Queen, still alive in a cell. That is all she wants from them, she says to the new leaders of the Ice Nation. Her second's body –somehow, her voice doesn't change when she says those words- and their Queen. Alive. They don't really hesitate.

First, she had the Queen's tongue burned by one of her warriors. She doesn't want to hear anything she has to say. She doesn't want this woman to say Costia's name. When they are alone, the Queen tied down, unable to move, she makes her suffer. As much as Costia has, she hopes, but not even close of how much she's suffering right now. None of what she can do to the Queen will ever match the pain she's feeling, nor will it ease it.

Everything has turned to ashes. The world feels colorless. The only thing she can feel is this tearing grief. She gets only sleepless nights where she cries so hard it hurts, or stays immobile in the dark, too wrecked to even cry. Sometimes, her mind refuse to understand that Costia really is gone, and it feels like she's just away for a while, like she's gonna come back to her, smiling to her, and then she sees her dead body again, that the leaders of the Ice Nation returned to her as well presented as it could be. She thinks of Costia's dead body, what was left of her looking so different from the fiery girl she had been –and then she doesn't think anymore, she only wants to scream her heart out. When she does sleep, she wakes up fighting an invisible enemy as hard as she can, and in her dreams there is something to win, but as soon as she wakes up, it fades away and it's just a pointless fight. She talks less and less, only when she has orders to give, and spends less and less time taking care of things. Truth be told, she couldn't care less about commanding.

Sometime after it happened, Gustus asks to talk to her in private. She agrees, even though his sight is hard to bear. He brings at her attention few problems she should have taken care of, but that she barely paid attention to. He sees he's not getting through to her and finally drops the subject to get into what he really came to say.

"-I know how much you loved her. I did too, in my own way. But your people are still alive, and they need you. You are their Commander, and whatever your heart feels, you don't get to let it get the best of you. Find a way to get through this, no matter how much you have to pretend. The dead are gone," He uses a word that adults use to talk to their beloved children, a term who carries tenderness and affection. This is the first and last time he'll ever do that. "-And the livings are hungry."

When he's gone, and she's back to the room where her advisors and chiefs of Clans reunite, Lexa understands that he is right. Here and there on her territory, agitators appear, looking to weaken the Coalition. She needs to take care of this, and other things, if she wants everything she accomplished during those years to keep existing. Many lives have been taken, but even more have been saved by the existence of the Coalition. This is way more important than her own person. So she hardens her heart, chase those feelings that make her so weak away, hide them in the deeps of her mind, and becomes the Commander again.

For the years after that, it had been all she was. The Commander. She never took a new second, even if Gustus was almost that, and never left anyone close to her. She wasn't Lexa anymore, a girl that could have loved ones, who could enjoy this or dislike that. There was only the Commander she needed to be. A ruthless, heartless leader that every warrior of the territory learned to fear, respect and obey through countless battles. By the time people fell from the sky, her authority was completely established and Polis was once again the capitol of all the territories from the ends of the Snow Plains to the frontiers of the South lands.

Two years and half after the battle against the Ice Nation, as she was meeting with an ambassador from the South lands (last time she was in Polis, Wolf told her the King of the South would soon send people to her, and as every time, her information were true), messengers from the Wood Clan arrived, sent directly by Anya. At first, she didn't believe a word they were saying and they had to show her items they stole from the invaders to convince her there could be truth in their words.

They told her and her assembly that dozens of people fell from the sky in a metallic ship, and that those people were burning villages and establishing themselves in the woods near the Wood Clan and River Clan territories. That they were led by a dangerous warrior, a young girl with yellow hairs. That detail only made Lexa wondered what on Earth they put in their calumet and in which dose. But the items and clothes they brought were clearly not made by any of the Clans, looked like nothing she ever saw before.

She left advisors she knew she could trust in charge in Polis and left, with her army, for the territory of the Wood Clan. The entire army seemed way too much, but Anya, through her messengers, insisted on how dangerous those Sky people were. And, well, the army wasn't required anywhere else anyway. If they were to crush the invaders, the quickest would be the best. By the time she arrived, hundreds of the warriors of the Wood Clan, including Anya, had been killed, but the Sky people were asking for peace anyway. She met with their representative, Kane. As much as she could see, the Sky people had only been trying to survive, which she could understand. Despite what they did to her people, she was ready to let them survive, at the condition they would leave her territory. She didn't want to cause deaths she could avoid. She stopped her army in sight of the Sky People camp, ready to unleash it if it came to that, when two riders came to her and told her the leader of the Sky people, the girl Anya first talked about, Clarke, wanted to meet her. The one who had her warriors killed, burned alive.

When Clarke entered her tent, Lexa found hard to believe her eyes. It was obvious that the girl in front of her wasn't a warrior, wasn't even a fighter. She had scars on her face, recent ones, not a single weapon or piece of armor on her. And yet she raised her eyes at Lexa and talked back to her with no fear in her voice. When Indra, the new chief of the Wood Clan, got angry enough to threaten this girl, Lexa got up to stop her without thinking about it. She didn't want Clarke to be hurt. She wanted to know more about this girl, brave enough to stand weaponless in front of an army and do what she had to anyway.

It wasn't long before Lexa started to see how strong Clarke was. She actually killed herself the boy she loved, a boy she would have been ready to die for, to make peace between their people. Lexa could easily see how affected the Sky girl was by that, but still she kept going, handling both her people and the new Alliance. They spend a lot of time together, working on the war coming and every time they met, Lexa felt a little closer from her. They were both in the same situation, leading hundreds and hundreds of people who needed to came first in everything they were doing. She wanted to help Clarke as much as she could, for she could see so much greatness in her. Still, she did not see where this was leading her. Quite a lot had already happened between them that day Clarke barged in her tent, gun pointed at Ryder, hitting him like she was the tall and experimented warrior and he the untrained smallest girl in the tent. That was Clarke, Lexa had the time to think. She could be vulnerable, she went through the hardest time of her life, but threaten her people and she transformed into an unstoppable force, without the slightest fear for her own safety.

They entered in some kind of a fight that suddenly turned into something completely different when Lexa tried to make her understand, once again, than feelings couldn't be in line when so much was at stake. Clarke literally threw Gustus and Costia at her face, saying that she could see right through her, and Lexa, who led thousands of warriors to battle, backed down under her fire. She hit the table and realized she couldn't run further away, which made her both terrified and, somehow, glad. A part of her didn't want to run away from Clarke and the feelings she was waking up. A part of her wanted Clarke to see right through her, to see what she really was feeling. The Sky girl was closer to her, now, than anyone had been for years and Lexa finally admitted, both to herself and to Clarke, that she cared for her. She had to take a moment, when Clarke finally left, to get herself together. In years, she had never let her guard that down, with anyone, and it was terrifying her. Clarke, or what she felt for her, was way too intense.  
And yet, she had her come back in her tent barely an hour later. The other girl's presence had become as necessary as breathing to her, before she even realized it. Just hearing her entering her tent made Lexa shiver. The look Clarke laid on her, head slightly bent over, made her chest tightens, tensed like it hadn't been in years and the next thing she said to the Sky girl looked like apologizes to her hears. That was the moment, when Clarke answered her, when Lexa couldn't take more. She wanted it so much. Feeling Clarke's mouth on hers… She wished it never stopped. Reaching for Clarke's mouth and encounters only air when she backed away… But in the end, the Sky princess, looking at her, said "Not yet". It didn't seem like much, but to Lexa, it was all the hope in the world on a two words form. Not yet. But maybe soon. Not yet, but it will come.

That was one of the things that tore her heart apart after Mount Weather, in addition of what she had done to Clarke. The hope she felt those last days with Clarke. Hope things could be bright again. Hope that she could, maybe, feel happiness again. In such a short time, the Sky leader had made her place into Lexa's heart, with her unstoppable way, her blond hairs and bluest eyes Lexa had ever seen. She couldn't stop wanting her. She couldn't stop _loving _her.

And now she was dead.

As Lexa waited in the Council room for the rescue mission to come back, she couldn't help but thinking about Clarke. Despite the years she spent hardening her heart, pretending not to feel anything –she really thought she succeeded at suppressing her feelings, not so long ago- the thought of her betrayal and Clarke's death wouldn't leave her mind.

The soldiers Kane had left were outside the room, as well as her own warriors, so she was alone and thought she was gonna be for a while when Raven went in with the radio. Kane wanted it in the Council room, to make things simpler for the rest of the events. Lexa realized, a second too late, that with her dark war paint, it was obvious she just cried. She saw surprise on Raven's face, before it turned to anger.

"-And what are _you _crying about?" The sky girl hissed, while installing the radio at the end of the table. The pictures were spread all over the table, Clarke's one on top. Lexa had just had time to put it back when Raven entered the room, at the worst possible time. It would have been even worst if another Grounder had seen her like that, but that was bad enough. Raven's eyes went from the picture to Lexa, slowly, as she realized what she just witnessed and what it meant.

"-Were you… You… _Clarke?_ You're crying for Clarke?" This time there was rage in her voice.

"-This is not…

-No, don't you dare say anything. You know what?" She continued with a grin of anger. "-I'm glad to know you finally have a heart, that you cared about her. At least, that way, you'll be in pain too. I didn't thought so, but it actually makes me feel better."

She left, leaving Lexa, alone again, in charge of the radio communications. The Commander stayed immobile, staring blankly at the table. Those Sky people, she thought. She wished they never fell out from the sky. She wished she never listened to Clarke in her tent the first time they met. She should have left Indra kill her, and it would have been a solved matter, and she wouldn't be feeling this way right now. She wouldn't be feeling so much pain after all she had done to avoid it.

But she knew it could never have went this way. She had been lost the moment she first laid eyes on Clarke. Maybe even before. She came across the sky like a shooting star to land right into Lexa's life and when this happened, they had been bound to meet and their relationship bound to be what it had been. She could never not have loved Clarke, as much as it hurt.

But right now, she would have given anything to make it go away. For a second chance. To see and hear Clarke again.


	10. Chapter 10

« -I had your sword locked away, Octavia. How did you get it back?

-I broke in and took it back. Do you have a problem with that? Now that mysterious people are susceptible to teleport anywhere trying to kill us?"

Kane dropped the subject. Octavia knew he couldn't stop her to carry a weapon now. He could hardly argue that they were all safe, this time. She didn't say so, but she actually didn't even have to break in. The guard in charge knew her a little, knew she had fought with grounders, and had let her go in to take her sword back, but she didn't want to cause him trouble by telling it to Kane. She stayed around him when he was organizing the rescue mission, and was now following him back to the council room. They ran across Raven on their way, and she told them the radio was where Kane wanted it. Octavia saw she looked upset and wondered how she took the news. She knew that Raven, same as herself, had had her problems with Clarke, but they also had been friends. She didn't have time to stop and talk to her, though. She wanted to stick to Kane and Lexa as much as she could, to be where everything was decided. She would not let herself be relegated to the ranks of those who just followed orders with no say in it, not this time.

When they got in the Council room, Lexa was still in it, alone with the pictures across the tables and the radio. Not very smart of Raven, Octavia thought, to let the Grounder Commander alone to deal with it. If the team had tried to contact them before Kane and Octavia came back, she wouldn't have known how to answer them. Of course, Raven was probably uncomfortable with the Commander, but still, she should have been more professional.

The pictures made Octavia think that they hadn't told Wolf she was on the Overseas Men's kill list. Whoever she was, they should have let her know that they had a common enemy. Kane interrogated Lexa about the unknown Grounders on the picture, but she didn't know anything about them. They were not from any clan of the Coalition. She said they might be from the South lands, but only Wolf could tell them if it was the case.

"-Do you trust her? You don't seem to know that much about her," Octavia asked.

"-She never once lied to me.

-It doesn't mean…

-We should be more concerned about the ones that were with us when we were attacked. Do you know where they are now?

-Sander and the girls? Why should we be concerned about them?

-Do you want all of your people to know about the Overseas Men?" Lexa asked directly to Kane. "-It is your decision, but letting the crowd learn about enemies with unknown powers before we know more is a dangerous one. I do not think those kids will keep silent about it if you don't tell them to.

-So when the Overseas Men target "the crowd", you won't let them know enough to save themselves?" Octavia said bitterly. Lexa raised her eyes at her immediately, with such an expression that the sky girl felt like she crossed a line. She still kept going, though.

"-Yeah, I said it. I don't care who you both think you are, none of you has the right to lie to people about what's going on. They have the right to know…

-To know what? The Commander's right, let Sander, Keagan and Leal talk to the others just now is dangerous. People will be afraid, and we can't afford to have a scared crowd to deal with right now. We'll communicate the information when we know more and have a real plan. Go get the three of them, Octavia, and bring them here."

She hesitated. She knew what Kane meant and that crowds could indeed have the wrong reactions. She remembered Murphy and Charlotte only too well. But it didn't mean Kane, Lexa, or anyone in charge really knew better and should be allowed to choose for people.

"-What about the prisoners? When the rescue team bring them here, they will tell what happened.

-We'll see what they have to say. They might not know more than we do. If they do, it might be enough to help us figure out our next step, and it will be way easier to expose the situation to the other Archers. Meanwhile, go get your friends before they spread the word out."

When Octavia left, he addressed to Lexa: "-I'll have her brother talk to her. That Tondc reference won't happen again.

-You know about Tondc?

-That you and Clarke knew? Of course. Don't worry, Commander. I understand that kind of decisions. I would have done the same thing if I had to.

-Who else does?

-Just Abby, Octavia and I, I think. What about your people?

-No one that I know about.

-Good. The less the better."

Octavia arrived with the three others skyers a short time after she left, and none of them protested when Kane told him what he expected from them. Sander didn't look like he would have protested if his life was in the line, though. The kid was so discreet Octavia had barely noticed him all the time they spent in the woods before the Arch landed, and she wondered what he could have done to be imprisoned in the first place, back in the Arch. Leal didn't seem very warriory either, but she had been the first one to open fire on the Overseas Men, before Bellamy and the others even knew they were here, making Octavia think that her perfect little girl look was just that, a look. Even Keagan, who did look like the delinquent she had been on the Arch, understood that the situation was too serious to disobey that kind of orders. Octavia still wasn't sure she'd keep her word, and she told it to Kane and Lexa when the three left the room.

"-Is Keagan the one with short hairs?" Lexa asked. Octavia nodded.

"-Then you are wrong. The other one, the one with blue eyes and brown hairs…

-Leal.

-She is the one to be watched over. The two others will do whatever she says.

-No," Octavia, said, surprised. "-Keagan is the revolted one."

-And Leal is the leading one of the three.

-How could you know that? You don't even know their names!

-I would be long dead if I could not tell those things, Octavia."

A while later, the radio started making crackling noises, and Miller's voice came from it. Kane took the microphone to answer him.

-Sir, we followed the grounder to the border of the desert and located a group of walkers that could be our people. They seem to be led by a young man that fits the description we have of Galton Willis. We are about to initiate contact with them.

-Don't turn your radio off. I want to know everything that happens.

-Yes, sir."

As Lexa, Kane and Octavia heard through the radio, the walkers really were Archers; it was confirmed when some of the soldiers recognized people of their families, and friends, among them. Most of them were out of strength, some in critical state, mostly from dehydration, and some died along the way in the desert. The soldiers gave them all the water they brought, helped the weaker ones to keep walking and carried some. They had spent one entire day on the travelling room, and more than three in the desert.

Once he organized the return to Camp Jaha, Miller went to talk to Galton, to ask him about the Overseas Men and the place the prisoners had been kept in. The boy told him how the men in white captured them all right after their piece of the Arch landed, how they have been kept in this room for weeks, maybe months. He talked about their weapons, which confirmed to Lexa and Octavia that the men in white that attacked them and the ones that had kept the Archers prisoners really were one and the same. He told, with Ace's interventions, how they planned their escape, until the Overseas Men, maybe one or two weeks earlier, brought a new prisoner in.

"-We all recognized her," Ace answered to Miller when he asked whether that new prisoner was an Archer or a Grounder. "-It was Clarke Griffin, the daughter of the Council member Abby Griffin."

Back in the Council room, Octavia jumped on the microphone and snatched it from Kane's hands before he could react.

"-Clarke's alive?" She practically screamed in it. On the other end of the radio, Miller hesitated, not sure if he was supposed to answer to her as well. When Kane managed to take the micro back, he told him to ask the question to the two boys. By his side, Octavia kept a hold on the microphone, anxiously waiting. In front of them, Lexa looked the same as usual, for nor Kane or Octavia noticed how strongly her fists were clenched on the edge of the table, how tensed her all body had become. Her grip on the table was so strong that her knuckles had turned white, and when the answer would come, she would have trouble to unfold her fingers to let it go. Right now, it was like the eternity was condensed in this few seconds, as her entire being was nothing more than this wait. She hated herself for that reaction, for feeling even a hint of hope. It would only make things even more painful than they already were.

In the desert, Galton, unconscious of the reactions Ace had provoked, hesitated, looking for his words.

"-She was when we left, but… I mean, she stayed there alone and…

-What do you mean, she stayed?" Octavia screamed so loudly than the boys in the desert could hear the radio that were supposed to be heard only by Miller. Galton gave an interrogating look to Miller, who indicated him to continue.

"-There was… We escaped together, and we found the teleporting rooms they use to travel, but as we were about to use them, the Chancellor arrived.

-What?" Kane barked in the microphone. "-Thelonius Jaha's there? In the Overseas Men base?

-He… Hum, it would be simpler if I could just take the microphone and talk to them myself, wouldn't it?" Galton suggested to Miller. Kane approved and the soldier gave it to the boy.

"-Speak up, kid. Was Jaha there?

-Yes, he came from a wall thanks to one of those devices, and he seemed… He didn't want to let us go, he was talking about a city of lights and a woman that we needed to serve or something like that, and tried to stop us. Clarke thought he would never tell us anything if we brought him back with us, but she didn't want to let him there alone. She told me to tell you everything we know, but that's not a lot, I'm afraid. We just know they have all this technology and that they are following that woman's orders. Also, according to the maps that were in the rooms, the base we were kept in are beyond the desert and the sea, on an island.

"-What about those teleporting rooms?" Lexa asked. She got closer to the microphone and they were now the three of them standing close to each other around the radio. "-Can we use them to get to this island?"

"-No, the rooms vanished the second they dropped us in the desert. I guess they… hum, went back to the teleportation room."

Lexa took a deep inspiration, and Octavia suddenly realized how anxious the Commander was. Even more than herself. But her voice was still calm and steady, same as usual, when she spoke again, and the sky girl wondered if she didn't imagine it. Hard to think the Commander could be upset about anything that had been said –or about anything at all. Maybe she was just feeling so nervous she projected it on Lexa.

"-That map, do you think you will be able to draw it for us? Accurately enough to lead us there?

"-Yes," The boy answered immediately. Clarke told us to memorize it, and we drew it every day in the sand to be sure we had it correctly."

Lexa let go of the microphone, her heart pounding in her chest like she just ran half a mile at full speed. Octavia, Bellamy and her had been attacked by the Overseas men and found the kill list, with Clarke's picture crossed in red, this morning. Those boys had seen her alive and already captured, five days ago. Did it mean that she had been a prisoner there and that they had finally killed her when she helped few dozens of people to escape? Or could it mean –she was afraid to even think it, to let even the slightest hope be born again- could it mean that the red crosses meant "captured" and not "killed" as they thought? That this red cross on Clarke's face that she couldn't get out of her mind simply meant she had been kidnapped but left alive?

An island, she thought in the few instants she let her mind get carried away. She could have Wolf deal with the boat people. They had always been in peace and Lexa met their leader few times. Unless they were allied to the Overseas Men, which they had no reason to be, given the goals those were pursuing, it would surely be possible to negotiate the transportation of soldiers across the sea. They could attack the Overseas Men, the Sky people and the Coalition together. They could attack them and rescue all the prisoners left there. This time, nothing in the world could stop her from unleashing her army.

…...

When Clarke, Jak, and Derna, who was in fact the leader of the Mist Clan, as she told Clarke, arrived to the control room, Jaha wasn't there anymore. There was still blood all across the room, on the walls, on the floor and on the panel control, but no trace of him. Even the piece of shirt Clarke used to tie his arms and feet together was gone. And yet, right outside of the door, there were no blood at all. If he crawled his way out, or managed to untie himself and ran away, he would obviously have left a trail of blood. He couldn't either had fled away through a wall, since Clarke took his device before leaving him. Or maybe "She" opened it for him? But if she knew what was happening, guards in white should have been all over the place, instead of letting prisoners escape and make their way to the control room. She checked the screen map of the mansion, and saw a convergence of red dots, not around them, but in the central room. They were all immobile. Whatever was happening, it was happening there. Their own position was signaled by blue points on the map and she wondered once again why they hadn't been surrounded by men in white already. Jaha said that "She" would be pleased when she would wake up, though. Maybe her sleep had something to do with her guards being all immobile in the same place. Could they be also controlled by this hypothetic AI? Or was it something completely different? Maybe it was just their prayer time, after all, and "She" was so strict about it than even urgent matters had to wait until it was over. It seemed absurd, but… She thought briefly about the chocolate cake of the Mountain Men, in the very room they died, and to those lovely and colored schoolbags, all above a crazy scientist lab and hundreds of people trapped into cages. Strict religious rules didn't seem so absurd compared to that, so who knew? Anyway, they only had one way to find out what was going on in this room. Its central position could indicate it was an important place.

"-You want to go to the only place where armed enemies are waiting for us?" Derna protested when Clarke told her. Actually, more than a protest, it looked like she wasn't sure about Clarke's sanity.

"-This is also the only place where we might get answers.

-I'll give you an answer, Clarke of the Sky people: we need to leave and come back with an army. That is all I need to know, and you should do with it too.

-No! What if _they_ send an army while your people are away, and we don't find out before it's too late? Or if they have weapons we don't know about yet and they wipe your army out? We can't leave without knowing more.

-Our people won't know more if we get killed here."

Clarke just shook her head as she tried to find a way to get in the central room without having to confront all the soldiers. Get there wasn't the problem in itself, with the map shining on the screen, but if they arrived there only to face a bunch of enemies with guns, it wouldn't make any good. As Derna said, no one would learn anything if the three of them got killed here.

"-They are not moving at all," The Grounder kid, Jak, said, as he was thoughtfully staring at the screen. "-Even though we just escaped. Maybe they cannot move.

-That's what I was thinking, but we have no way to be sure," Clarke answered. "-If we walk in there and they're ready to fight, we're dead.

"-What if…" Jak started before they all saw the red dots finally moving. This time, they moved quickly, and all went downstairs, in the direction of the Teleportation room.

"-That's our shot," Clarke warned them. "-We have to get there before they realize we're not downstairs anymore. When they'll come back in this level, we'll be able to get to the Teleportation room and leave this place, but we need to go now."

She took few seconds to shoot the panel control before leaving the room. There was a mechanism made to destroy the travelling rooms, and she didn't want it to be used once they'd be in it. They met no one on their way until the moment they got in the central room. It was way bigger than the control room they just left, and all the center of the room was occupied by a huge silvered machine. It was several blocks, each vibrating so loudly it made the sound of a purring giant cat, linked to each other by dozens of wires and cables. From time to time, the cables started shining for few seconds and the two blocks it connected would vibrate even stronger. The biggest block in the middle had a black letter and a subtext written on each side. There was a L and "Lifeform" written underneath, a I for Intelligence, an E for Evolved and a A for Artificial. On one of the sides, the acronym "A.L.I.E" was shining in dark letters.

"-What is this?" Derna whispered to Clarke. "-Is this what you called a computer?

-I guess." Clarke moved closer to the machine, impressed. She knew technology better than Derna, but she never saw anything like it, even back on the Arch, where the machines were keeping everyone alive. As if it reacted to her approach, most of the cables shone so bright it became blinding, and the purring of the machine resound louder than ever. After a second of it, right before her, a woman appeared. She didn't brutally appear like the men in white did in the piece of Arch where they captured Clarke, but gradually, by layers that successively made her more tangible. When the process was over, no one could have told she wasn't real. She gave a bright smile to Clarke and to the Grounders behind her. Both of them had an instinctive move to reach their weapons, even though they were disarmed.

"-Welcome to all of you," The hologram said with a soft and cheery voice. "-I wasn't expecting you so soon. But we can make it work out anyway.

"-Who are you? What do you want?" Clarke had raised her gun not to the hologram, but straight to the machine. Straight to the central block, that she assumed was the core of the computer. The woman barely looked at the weapon, but her smile faded away a little.

"-My name is Alie," she said with a gesture to the letters on the block.

"-You're a machine.

-Oh, I am way more than that, Clarke. Don't let your mind be stopped by the appearances.

-Then what…

-I am the next step.

-What does that even mean? Why do you keep prisoners here, how can your people do what they do? And what about Jaha, the city of Lights he talks about?

-So many questions.

-Shoot, Clarke. We won't need answer if she's destroyed.

-I wouldn't do that, if I were you. This machine would prove way harder to destroy than your own vessels. Clarke, you can have all the explanations you want.

-Including what you did to Jaha and why you want to irradiate the world again?"

As the hologram was talking to her, the machine had another luminous episode, and in one of the side of the room, a three dimensional map of the island appeared.

"-Come closer, Clarke. Come see the city of lights."

With apprehension, keeping herself ready to fire, Clarke took few steps towards the machine and the map as the hologram positioned itself right next to the map.  
When they saw Jaha rise from behind the blocks, she had time to shoot him before he reached her. But she didn't. Maybe if she had few more seconds, she could have react, but in the short time she had, she just saw Wells's face again and the ex-chancellor took advantage of it to attack her. His hand, like Clarke's knee few days earlier, was completely cicatrized. They both fell on the floor, Jaha on top of her, and her gun hit the ground twice in its fall, before hitting a wall. She immediately tried to roll over and reach it, but Jaha was even faster. He uncapped with his teeth the syringe he was holding and violently planted it in Clarke's neck. She couldn't hold a cry of pain as the liquid, burning as fire, started to flow in her veins.

The next second, Jaha's head exploded in front of her, covering her with blood and flesh. Derna had picked the gun up and shot him. She then shot the computer, almost emptying the magazine on the core and the wires. The hologram disappeared almost instantaneously as Clarke got back on her feet.

"-Are you insane? She's gonna make all the guards come here to kill us!" She shouted at the Grounder.

-Maybe, but she was gonna do worse to you. Look at this fool's neck. She injected stuff to him to."

Clarke did look at Jaha's body, unwillingly. She felt nauseous and dizzy at the sight of it. The syringe had fallen next to him, half empty. The hologram map was still floating in the air, but showing different things, changing every few seconds.

"-Come on, let's go back to the Teleportation room while we can," Derna pressed her.

"-Wait. This is the block that got noisier when she made this appear.

-So?

-So look at what it's showing now! There are files in this, we have to get them.

-What?

-We don't have time for an informatic class! In short, we can extract information out of this machine, probably contained in a small metallic object.

-And how do we do this?

-I don't know… But there has to be a way."

She thought of Monty, navigating through numbers and codes so easily. He would have been better suited than her for this. The cube looked completely smooth and she couldn't figure out how to access its functions and information. Nothing happened when she touched it, but when she pressed the device against it, the purring got louder, and it surface lighten up, letting some kind of a menu appear. The hologram morphed into the menu as well.

"-Hurry," Derna said nervously. "-They won't take forever to get here."

Clarke ignored both her growing dizziness and the voice of the Grounder leader to focus on the screen. It didn't look like anything she ever saw before, but it still had something familiar enough for her to find her way through. She found files filled with formulas, projections, pictures. Pictures of pieces of dead lands, looking like everything had been burned, in different regions. Pictures of people –Lexa's picture first. Seeing this took her breath away. Was Alie planning to do to Lexa the same thing she did to Jaha? Despite the emergency, she had to force herself away from the photography. She didn't thought she would see the Commander again, and to see her face in those conditions hit her hard. She didn't have time for this, she reminded herself. According to what she could see, Alie had already started her irradiation plan, and the life of everyone she knew might be depending on what Clarke would manage to do in the next minutes. She couldn't let herself be distracted now. If there ever was a bad time to try to figure out how she felt about Lexa, this was right now. So she took her eyes away from the picture, went quickly to the end of the list –the last persons on it were a shock as well: Bellamy and her mother were both targeted- and to the next files. She still couldn't find a way to extract them. The next one was a list of locations that she feared were all Alie's bases. She understood a moment later that it was even worse than that, and understood in the same time where all the men in white came from.

Alie had listed fourteen places, hidden in the lands of the Coalition, in the South lands, and on different islands. All were human farms.

There was others files in the computer, but she couldn't access it, no matter how she tried. Looking for an entrance, she finally came across an option menu that appeared only on the hologram. It simply said "erase all files", "conserve all files" "print all files". She asked Jak, who stayed next to the hologram out of curiosity, to selection the last option. She wasn't sure about how it worked, but since it didn't appear on the screen, it seemed like the last option.

"-Is it done?" Clarke could hear the fear in Derna's voice, even though the Grounder was trying to hide it behind an impatient tone.

One of the smaller block next to the one Clarke was working on was activated by Jak's action, and the wires lightened up the all room. The hologram disappeared in a flash, leaving only a small golden box where it had been floating. Jak turned to her as if he was asking for permission and she nodded at him. He took the little box floating in the air and brought it to her. Relief overwhelmed her as she realized that despite its weird appearance, the box was actually a USB flashdrive.

"-Can we go, now? We will never make it if we don't leave right away."

Clarke was about to answer when the dizziness she couldn't shake off suddenly became worst, making her feel like the all room was spinning around her. She tried to take a step to the Grounder, but only managed to stumble and fall against the machine. Derna was next to her before she had the time to realize what happened.

"-Jak, help me get her up. It's that thing he injected you. You need a healer.

-I'm fine," Clarke assured her. As a matter of fact, her dizziness seemed to have lessened when she fell and she didn't need Derna's help to get back on her feet. "-We should go".

She didn't need to say it twice. Derna gave her back her gun and the three of them took the way to the closest stairs, then started making their way through the walls to the Teleportation room. Halfway there, they ran across two men in white. Clarke shot one of them twice, in the chest and stomach, as Derna and Jak both took on the second man who didn't have time to reach his weapon. The grounder woman ripped the gun out of the soldier's hands and fired at him from few inches away. His helmet and head got pulverized by the bullets. Both grounders kept the guns with them as they got back on their way to the Teleportation room.

They heard footsteps and cries not far away when they arrived, and Clarke had barely time to program their destination, the closest point of Camp Jaha she could find, before the wall opened on an entire group of soldiers. The room started its travel merely a second before they opened fire at the three prisoners. Clarke leaned against the wall, catching her breath. She could barely believe they made it out alive.

"-Is everyone OK?" She asked to the two grounders, turning to them. Jak was inspecting every inch of his gun, with curiosity. He never got to hold such a powerful weapon before and she saw he wouldn't let go of it for the world.

"-You are not, Clarke of the sky people." Derna answered calmly. She wasn't toying with it as Jak, of course, but still she kept her gun with her.

-I told you, I'm fine.

-No, you are not. Your skin could not be any paler even if you were dead, and you are not leaning against this wall because you feel like it, but because you are afraid you will not be able to stand if you let go of it. Am I wrong?"

Clarke didn't answer to her. Clearly, there was no point in lying, and nothing more to say.

"-Sit down," Derna said. "-There is no point wasting your forces. You should rest until this room arrives at destination.

The sky girl obeyed, letting herself slide along the wall. Her head was spinning, and the second she found herself on the ground, her back against the wall, she felt so sleepy she couldn't fight it. The gun dropped from her hand as her eyes closed.


	11. Chapter 11

Before the prisoners and the soldiers came back from the desert, the Council, flanked by Bellamy and Lexa (and Octavia who had managed to tag along), made a public announcement to the people of Camp Jaha. They said that a new threat had appeared, coming from an island east of their lands. The enemy disposed of advanced technology and possibly nuclear weapon, but several of their soldiers had been taken down, and their weapons under study. The Grounders, victim of the attacks of this enemy, were back by the Sky people's side and their army would be here soon –the Archers didn't take that news too well, and Kane had to tell them that the Commander agreed to let no grounder weapon enter the camp, and that any attack against her and her people would be regarded as treason. He said that all in all, even though they didn't know a lot about their enemy, everything could and would be handled.

The sun had gone down above Camp Jaha when the rescue mission finally came back. Miller and his soldiers escorted the group straight to the infirmary. All of them were severely dehydrated, even if there were only few in a critical state, and all the medical staff were readying itself for a busy night. Lexa, Bellamy, the entire Council, and Octavia were there too, as soon as the mission arrived. They stayed long enough for the Council to welcome the prisoners, ant take Galton and Ace back in the Council room with them. With Kane's agreement, Wolf followed as well and Abby let Jackson in charge for the moment. There, the boys re-explained all that happened to them so every Council member would have all the information. As they were waiting for the chief scientist, Da Silva, to arrive with the first results of the study of the sword, Kane asked to Wolf if she could identify the Grounders unknown to the Commander, and gave her the pile of picture. She raised an eyebrow at the sight of her own picture and gave an interrogative look at Lexa, but it was the five next pictures that seemed to shock her.

"-Do you know them?" Kane asked.

"-Yeah. And that's not good news," She answered, positioning the pictures on the table so everyone could see. "-The first one," she said while showing them the picture of a dark-blond man, that looked approximately the same age as Bellamy, "-Is Allander, the king of the South lands. With Lexa, it would be the one person to kill to make war explode again all the way from the South to the Snow Plains. The four others are his most trusted lieutenants, the ones who would take the power over if he was to die.

"-The South lands?" Adler asked.

"-The South lands is the closest nation to, except for the Boat people who have no lands. It is a huge territory that had been united by Allander's older brother twenty years ago. When he died, Allander took the power and pacified his lands. A lot of his advisors wanted him to enter in a war against the Coalition, few years ago, but he knew better and sent peace messengers instead." Lexa explained.

-So the Overseas Men are targeting the South lands as well. Is this king's army powerful?

-It's huge, for a start," Wolf said. "- So yes, they are powerful. And, when I was there few weeks ago, two wastelands had appeared on his territory as well. He would be ready to consider an alliance, I think.

-Does he even know we exist?

-News tend to travel fast when people fall from the sky with advanced technology and start wars with all the neighbors. Anyway, as Lexa said, Allander is smart, he values peace, and you clearly have a common enemy. I'll go back there soon anyway, he needs to be warned about this."

A soldier guarding the door of the room went in to say something to Kane, who nodded. The soldier went back outside and let the chief scientist in the room. The man, brown-skinned and with half-long dark hairs, had few pages of notes in his hands. He saluted everyone at the same time, before taking place next to Kane.

"-So, what do you have?

-Well, the first thing to point out is that the radioactivity of the sword the Commander brought us is quickly decreasing. It can contaminate objects and people around, but it is less dangerous than when it got here, and probably even less than when you took it from that village. We believe there is a physical source of radioactivity in the center of the Wastelands you talked about, which contaminate everything around, and till it is there, it keeps spreading, but any object taken away will progressively loose its dangerousness. Which means two things. First, until those cores are still implanted in your lands, the wastelands will keep expanding. The burning of the surrounding areas will slow it down, but it will eventually overcome that obstacle and contaminate more ground, slower as it gets away from the core, though. The second thing, a better news, is that theoretically, if what we think is correct, removing those cores would stop the progression of the radioactivity. Of course, it would take a little time for all contaminated objects to get clean again, and the already damaged lands will stay damaged, but it would definitely stop spreading. Stays the matter of how those cores could be taken away, and how to store them, since any land they would be stored in would suffer the same fate as yours. Or how to destroy them.

-Or how to throw them all on the Overseas Men base," said Volkov, the newest woman in the Council. Her suggestion was received quite well by the others.

"-Let's not get carried away," Kane said anyway. "-We don't know yet if this theory is correct. We should send a scientific team to the closest Wasteland to see if they can confirm it, and keep studying it otherwise. Commander, how many time before your army gets there?

-The messengers left your camp today. They will be as fast as humans can be, but they have to do all the way to Polis, the army needs to gather, and thousands of people are slower than few men. Two to three weeks for the entire army, I would say. The first regiments will be there in just few days.

-As soon as they get here, we will need few of their horses to send ambassadors to the King of the South lands.

-Wait a second, Kane. We don't know the first about those southern Grounders.

-We know we share an enemy, and that they left a powerful nation so close to theirs in peace. It is worth trying to contact them in a good way. Wolf, do you know where the King is in this land?

-The wastelands appeared in the north of the territory. That's where he was when I left. Luckily, he will still be in this area, and the journey won't be that long.

-We also need the support of the Boat people," Lexa said. "No one else can get our army to the Overseas Men's island if this is how that war goes. I met their queen, Luna, a few times. She will do what is needed of her.

-Are you saying that our entire defense will be based on Grounders armies?

-Do you see any other way we could fight a war, Councilman Adley?" Bellamy intervened, on a polite but firm tone. "-There is barely two thousands of us and the Overseas Men have nuclear weapon. We can't compete."

The meeting went on for a while, until late at night. Mayk made himself Lexa's shadow as soon as she got out of the Council room. She had travelled the most discreetly she could to Camp Jaha, which meant, of course, without her Commander tent, and Kane had attributed her a room in the old residential parts of the Arch, not far from his own. She asked Wolf to come as well. Once in her room, which wasn't exactly spacious, but not so small she would have to consider it as an insult, she talked to Wolf, in Trigedasleng.

"-When will you be leaving for the South lands?

-I'd like to see this camp around, talk to the sky people, especially to the ones who got on Earth first. So, the day after tomorrow, I think.

-When you are done with the king, I would like you to go straight to Luna."

She restrained herself for ordering the girl. She was not one of her warriors, even though they fought together before. However, she knew she would be ready to do what Lexa would ask her to.

"-Don't you trust the Sky people for that?

-They will need someone who know our culture, and they need our horses to get there. You already have yours, which means you might arrive there before they do if you reach the king fast and do not stay long in the South lands.

-Fine. Though I'm concerned the Sky people won't even let me leave, with all that we learned today. This Councilman, especially, doesn't trust us at all.

-Marcus Kane does, and for now, that is what matters the most. Bellamy and Octavia do too, even if she is angry at me.

-Yeah, why is that? And why did you have to go that far to be even let in their camp? This is like the first time ever I see you without weapons.

-Have you not heard of the Mount Weather battle?

-I did, this is all the clans talk about around here. The Sky princess eradicating the Mountain Men, your people freed from the reapers…

-They were freed by the reapers's masters. I made a deal with their leader and abandoned the Sky people at the door of Mount Weather. That is why the…" She was thinking that it was why Clarke had to do what she did, why she left and what she was alone and defenseless when the Overseas Men captured her, but no words came out of her mouth. "-That is why they do not trust me. I broke the Alliance once before. And I need to prove them this will not happen again." She ended.

She didn't sleep that night. She didn't even try to sleep. She knew she wouldn't get better than hours of nightmares, if sleep came at all. She was too tensed for rest. It was like a fireball was burning in her chest, since the boys had said that Clarke might be still alive, a fire that wouldn't stop burning until she could see the Sky Princess with her own eyes, or until she learned her death for sure.

When she went out of the Arch, in the deep of the night, she realized she wasn't the only one unable to sleep. Bellamy was outside too, walking aimlessly in the camp. She remembered that he cried as well, this morning, when they found Clarke's picture. Something twisted in her at the thought of the girl. She thought, once more, to the last time they saw each other. To the tears in Clarke's eyes, that look full of anger, pain and fear she had. Lexa couldn't stand thinking this was the last sight of Clarke she'll ever have. _I will find you. If you are alive, wherever you are, I'll never stop until I find you. Even if you hate me for what I did to you, I will find you and bring you home._

Bellamy eventually saw her, and after a moment where he clearly hesitated –she could see it to his posture, even in the dark- he walked in her direction.

"-Commander.

-Bellamy."

They looked at each other without saying anything, but she knew he was longing to ask her something. She waited, though. For once, she had time in front of her. Too much time until morning.

"-Commander," He finally said, "-You talked about sailing an army to the Overseas Men base, with the help of the Boat People. But this will take time. I know you don't care, but Clarke is in there, possibly still alive. I think we should send a rescue team for her.

-And how do you propose this team to infiltrate their base, Bellamy? The seas are not the woods, you cannot hide soldiers. You can only send a ship, and ships are visible from far away." She didn't correct him about her not caring. It was better if he kept thinking that. "-And if this team was sent, the Overseas Men would immediately learn about us going to the Boat People, who are not yet implicated in this war, and would also learn we have information about them…

-I'm not ready to let her die there just because it would be risky to help her! She risked her life countless time for our people, and even for yours! How can you…" He shouted at her, interrupting her, and she didn't him finish either.

"-I am not rejecting this plan because it is too risky for us, but because this is not, in anyway, how we can help her! Is she is still alive, prisoner there, what good would it do if you got captured too, or killed?

-But if we wait for an army to attack, even if she manages to stay alive until then, killing her is the first thing they will do when we arrive!

-Or the last, because she will be all they will have to offer to us, when we arrive at their doors with the greatest army this land has seen in a century. Her and the other prisoners they still have."

He kept silent, looking at her with something that looked like despair, and because she understood so well what he was feeling, it made her wanting to comfort him. There wasn't a lot she could say to do that, though.

"-I know it is a long shot, Bellamy, and your will to save your leader is a noble thing. But the truth is that all we can do to help her now is preparing this war. This is the best chance we can give her.

-And what if it's not enough?

_What if it's not enough? What if she's dead already? What if they are killing her right now?_

His question provoked an access of terror she had been trying to avoid. When she answered, it was both for him and for herself.

"-There is not point worrying about what you cannot control, Bellamy. I do wish I had more satisfying answers for you. We will fight the Overseas Men, and if she is still alive, we will get her back. But there are things we don't have a hold on, no matter how much we want it."

The next day, Wolf came into her room to tell her the scientists thought they had find a way to isolate the hypothetical radioactive cores, and that they would probably announce it to the Council today, which meant the expedition would be ready to go. Lexa thought of sending Maykl with them, but he was the most trusted warrior she had here, of all the ones that came with her, and she wasn't comfortable staying here without anyone she knew for sure was on her side. Wolf had had time to socialize with the Sky people enough to learn what happened to Anya and Gustus. Lexa could hide from a lot of people how much she felt for them, but Wolf knew her since she was thirteen, when she first came to Polis with no one else in the world than Gustus, Costia, and her ex-mentor Anya. She knew that Lexa had loved them. She barely mentioned it, at the Commander's relief, but still, on her way out, her hand brushed Lexa's arm, very briefly, and the contact was broken before Lexa had time to react. And then, crossing the door, she ran into Octavia, who was bargaining with Maykl so he would let her in. Wolf gave her the same happy smile she gave to Kane when she arrived the day before, as Lexa was telling to Maykl to let the Sky girl pass. Octavia arrived in the room, still watching Wolf.

"-She's not like you, is she? I mean, like the other Grounders from the Coalition.

-Is this what you came to talk about, Octavia of the Sky people?" Lexa asked, quite coldly.

"-No, I don't care about that. I want to know what's in it for you. You don't really need us, except for the Wastelands, and that is being solved. How can we be sure you're not gonna betray us again?

-This is nothing like the fight against The Mountain Men. They were threatening one of my clans. The Overseas Men are threatening all of my lands, and beyond. This is not only about me, my people, and yours. This is about the world. Last time nuclear weapons were used, humanity barely survived it, and there were millions of millions of people living on Earth, back then. What do you think would happen now?

-So you're saving the world? That's what I'm supposed to believe?

-You can believe whatever you want, as long as you do not try to jeopardize this alliance.

-Are you kidding me? I'm hardly the one who jeopardized…

-We are not having this talk, Octavia. I am here because I want to protect my people and my lands, and you are living on those lands."

Octavia stopped and looked at her, baffled.

"-Does that mean you're… Like… Including us in that protection?

-That is exactly what it means.

-Well, that's new." The girl was disconcerted, and for once, her combative attitude disappeared. "-What do we owe this change of heart to?

-When we met few days ago, you said that it was my fault Clarke left.

-And you said I spoke like a child.

-You did. But you were right. I broke a promise your people have been through great lengths to obtain, and because of that, your leader is gone, maybe for good. I have a debt to your people, Octavia, and I intend to pay it. That you believe me or not does not make any difference, but I and your people need you to act like you do. An alliance is the only way we can win this war, and more than forty-seven lives are in the balance, this time.

-You're telling the truth," Octavia stated, like she didn't know what to do with the information.

"-Yes.

-Then… Will I be able to be trained by your warriors again?

-If this is what you wish, I will talk to Indra about it."

Octavia nodded, not ready to be grateful yet, but more favorably disposed to the Commander.

"-You may leave, now. Or was there something else?

-No. But this doesn't mean we're gonna forgive you about…

-There is something you need to understand, Octavia, if you want to be treated like a warrior. I am not your friend, nor your equal. I am the Commander of the twelve Clans. I have been tolerant about you and your anger to me until now, but disrespect me again and you _will_ be treated as one of my warriors. Is it clear?"

All the fight in Octavia's attitude was back at those words, but as Lexa thought, the girl was enough of a Grounder to accept their rules. She curtly nodded again, and their eyes met for a second, before Octavia backed down to leave the room. She would turn into a fine warrior, if she was to survive long enough, the Commander thought. She was yet undisciplined, but had good fighting spirit. The Sky people could use more of her kind.

She didn't see the rest of the day pass. She spent it entirely in meetings, mostly with Kane and the Council, but also with the scientific team that were working on the radioactive sword, the mechanic team that were studying the guns and radios, and Bellamy and others of the Sky youngsters. They insisted to talk to her alone, and, as she knew they were the ones Clarke relied on the most, she accepted. Maykl was not pleased with it, but she didn't leave him a choice. He wasn't pleased with anything since she made her warriors drop their weapons in the Council room anyway, which was making her worry about the reaction of the leaders of the Clans when they would arrive. Of course, they would install the tents outside of Camp Jaha and thus would not have to let go of their weapons, but she was going to have a hard time convincing them that her being disarmed in the territory of the Sky people had nothing to do with weakness. Away from the Wastelands, the invisible enemy would soon seem less of a threat than the Sky people to them.

Her warriors are holding her tight as she fights to get to Costia, and even in the dream she knows it's already over. She's already talking with the warriors that betrayed their queen to deal with her, but they're not the ones she really met that day. Those are the men in white, the Overseas Men, and the Queen is the mysterious woman that rules them. When they give her the body of her second, she doesn't see Costia's dark hairs, her body torn apart by the awful wounds they inflicted to her. Instead, it is Clarke's body resting in front of her. The lands around her are darkening, the Overseas woman smiles to her as Lexa struggles to get near Clarke. The Sky princess's blue eyes are open, staring at the void of death, but the Commander still fights to get to her as if she could change what happened. But she couldn't when the Ice Nation took her furious girl and broke every part of her before she dies all alone, she couldn't when she turned her back at Clarke at the door of Mount Weather, and she can't now. She's reaching for Clarke's hand despite everything, but there is fire and water between them, burned lands and impassable seas that keep them apart.  
She wakes up screaming. Not whispering prayers in the dark, like she did so often since Mount Weather, but really screaming, possibly Clarke's name. Maykl barges into the room, ready to massacre any intruder with his bare hands to protect the Commander's life, but he sees quickly that the room is empty, except for her.

"-What happened, Heda? Are you alright?" He still asks, even though what just happened is pretty clear.

"-Yes," She says, but her voice says otherwise. She takes a short time to regain control of herself, before talking to him again. "-Leave", she ordered. He stood there like she said nothing. She raised her voice to him: "-I said leave".

This time, he saluted her to show submission and left the room. She stayed sitting on the edge of the bed. She had slept barely an hour, and she was certainly not gonna try again. It wouldn't do any good, obviously. She knew she would have to, eventually, but maybe she could when she would really be exhausted, after few sleepless nights.

She came outside once again, her war paints back on her face. Maykl hadn't say anything, but she could tell he had liked the sight of it. Like the previous night, she spotted Bellamy, as restless as her, in the camp. This time he was with Raven and Monty, but he still saw her as well. He looked at her, and, hesitantly, had a gesture that could only be an invitation to join them. Lexa saw Raven twitch, but she Sky girl did nothing to stop it. The three of them were sitting around a small campfire, in a not exactly cheerful mood. She sat near them, not sure what to say. As the Commander, she knew she probably shouldn't have done that. As Lexa, that night, she couldn't bring herself to care.

"-Can't sleep either?" Raven asked, in a tone half-bitter, half-sarcastic. Lexa was starting to see that this attitude was the girl's way to cope with things that hurt her. She hesitated to give an answer. "-Not tonight," She finally said. At the way they looked at her, she understood Raven told the boys about their encounter in the Council room. Bellamy, especially, raised his eyes to her for a moment. Of course, he knew she couldn't get sleep last night either. She was grateful he didn't say anything. None of them spoke a word of Clarke during that night, mostly because they knew they couldn't say anything the others wouldn't have thought of already.

Monty searched his bag, who looked like a huge mess in a small place, and got a plastic bottle out of it, which made Raven quite thrilled.

"-Thanks god, I thought I'll never have any again! Where did you get it?" He landed her the bottle that she debouched quickly, and she drank few mouthfuls of it, before handing it over to Bellamy, with a smile. Not a very happy one, but still.

"-Stole it from the food supplies. I figured we could use some.

-Monty, you thug. You're a life savior."

Bellamy took it without a word and drank like he wanted to drown himself in it. Wiping out the drops of his mouth, he gave it to Lexa, who took it cautiously.

"-What is this?

-Oh, you should definitely try it. If this doesn't put you to sleep, I don't know what will," Monty told her. She took a look at Bellamy, who nodded to her. As he and Raven did, Lexa drank directly from the bottle, before precipitately take it away from her mouth, stopping herself to cough. It felt like liquid fire just went down her throat and left a trail of warmth from her mouth to her to the inside of her chest. Her shocked face made Monty laugh a little, and even brought a little smile on Bellamy's face.

-Don't Grounders have alcohol?

-We certainly do not. Is it something you drink regularly?

-No wonder your people think life sucks so hard," Raven commented.

-Well, not too much, supposedly. It's mostly for special occasions, bad or good ones. Don't drink too much of it."

Lexa remembered that Kane said the same thing about the bottle he gave her on the feast that was supposed to celebrate their truce.

"-Why is that?" The Sky people exchanged knowing looks, but none of them answered her. She decided it wasn't that important, and drank a little more before giving it to Monty. It was easier on the second try.

Two hours after she joined the group, the four of them just spent the weirdest time Lexa had ever had. In addition of the fact that the world seemed way more blurry than she knew it, she felt like she could tell or do anything that crossed her mind, and obviously, the three sky people did as well. That led them, after emptying the first bottle, to break into the food supplies to get new ones –Lexa was trained as a hunter, of course, but that night it seemed like she completely forgot how to be silent, and the fact that the hallway of the Arch was empty was the only thing that allowed them to not get caught, for they apparently couldn't not yell every one of their sentences, or even not bump into the walls –that was mostly Monty. Once they were back outside and enthusiastically reducing the level of liquid in the second bottle, Raven had a time when she angrily shouted at them for few minutes, but after that, she practically cried apologies on Bellamy's shoulder, as Monty was trying to walk on a thin line that he was the only one to see on the grass. He tripped over his own feet and rolled on the floor, watching at them with so much bewilderment on his face that Lexa couldn't help laughing.

Bellamy and Raven turned to her, forgetting about Raven's break down.

"-Look at that! She can actually laugh!" They both burst in laughter as well, as Lexa stopped herself, realizing how out of control she was. Raven hit her shoulder, in a move that she surely meant as a small one but would actually leave a bruise that Lexa would see the next day.

"-Hey, let it go a little! That's the point of being wasted, and no one here's gonna try to murder you because you've had a second of humanity.

-Plus, what happens when you're drunk," Bellamy managed to say, laboriously putting one word after the other, "-Stays… Stays… stays when you're drunk?" He finished, turning to Raven for confirmation.

-Duh! That's like the first rule of drinking!

-I love you, Guys!" Monty intervened, clumsily trying to hug them both at the same time. Raven hugged him back, Bellamy did too, and the boy went to take Lexa in his arm as well.

-You too, you're sad, come here…"

She almost jumped out of his reach, but her reflexes were seriously slowed down, and he wrapped his arms around her. She relaxed a little once she was certain that was all he was going to do and even patted his back once or twice. She too felt more loving than usual, especially towards the three of them. Even more, she could feel their love for each other, the warm vibes of it in the air around them. It felt strangely comforting in the middle of those days of fear and suffering, all this human warmth that was all they could give to each other.

When the sun came up, illuminating a cloudless sky, they were all lying on the grass, behind the Arch, where no one ever went. Raven was half-sleeping, curled up around Monty, her head on his chest, Bellamy was on his back staring at the blue of the sky, Lexa next to him. It had been a cold night, but she was only realizing it now, as the morning dew made her shiver. Bellamy turned his head to her.

"-Are you OK?

-Why not?

-I know my head is hurting like a m… anyway, don't you feel nauseous?

-No."

Raven chuckled, not moving from Monty. "-She handles it better than you, Bellamy.

-Or than you," He said. "-Who cried for half an hour and said "I love you" to everyone?

-That was Monty.

-I swear you said it to me, Raven.

-You're taking your dreams for reality, Blake.

-Sure am." He had a comically desperate grunt as he tried to stand up. "-I guess we should go."

They all got back on her feet –Raven and Lexa with no difficulty, but they had to drag Monty up. He looked about to throw up, and Bellamy took him back to the Arch to get some water. Before leaving, Raven turned to Lexa.

"-About what I said to you… That was not true. I mean, knowing that you do have feelings isn't a bad thing, but the fact that they're hurt… It doesn't make me feel any better. I kind of wish it would, but…"

Lexa simply nodded, but, as Raven was about to leave, she changed her mind.

"-Thank you, Raven. For tonight."

The Sky girl turned to her, and also nodded, before turning back. There was almost a smile on her face when she did.

Wolf was waiting next to her room, all packed –which in her case meant that she had pretty much everything you could possibly need somewhere on her, in a bag, a pocket or tied to her clothes- when Lexa got back to the Arch.

"-Are you leaving?

-Yeah. I'll take the desert road, and the Sky people told me the place they first landed on was on the way, so I was wondering if you would accompany me until I get there. I'd like to see it."

Lexa thought about it. She had never saw the place where Clarke's people had lived their first weeks on Earth, and a walk could do her good. It would be the occasion to talk to Wolf about Allander and Luna, too. She informed Maykl in case of any Sky people would come looking for her, as well as Kane. The Chancellor insisted that she didn't leave the camp without guards, that he provided, and gave her back her sword and dagger. On that, they left for the first Sky people camp.


	12. Chapter 12

"She has been sleeping for hours. Is it normal?

-Of course it is not! She had been poisoned!" Derna replied with irritation. Truth be told, she wasn't sure whether it was poison or something else, but either way, there was nothing normal in the Sky girl's state. She didn't even know whether she fell asleep or passed out.

When she collapsed, Derna had laid her down, on her side, so she wouldn't stay in the half-sitting position she fell in, and cleaned as much as she could of the blood that was covering the girl's face. She hadn't had the slightest reaction to Derna's touch. And she had stayed asleep, without the single move, since they left the complex. Her breathing and heartbeat were regular and strong, though, which could only be a good sign.

Jak watched her anxiously. He had finally let go of his gun, which wasn't as interesting as it could be, since he could not fire it yet. A promising kid, he was, as her older sister. That was why Derna spent time with him, training him, thinking he could become her second after Shaïra. That was why he was with her when the men in white captured her, too.

"-The Commander is going to be pissed if she dies," The boy said in Trigedasleng.

"-What would you know about the Commander's thoughts?

-Shaïra told me the Commander cared for the Sky princess.

-Your sister should not talk of things she knows nothing about.

-But she _knows_ the Commander. She told me she had nightmares every night, and that she would call the Sky princess in her sleep."

Derna's irritation turned to anger towards Shaïra. She knew very well where Shaïra had spent her nights in Polis after the truce with the Mountain Men, but she thought her second would be smarter than this. Spilling the Commander's secrets, to an eleven years old boy!

"-Listen to me, Jak. You should not know about those things. It is not your fault that you do, but you must not speak a word of it, to anyone. Do you understand?

-Even to the clan people?

-I said anyone! And when we get back, I will tell the same to Shaïra. This is the Commander's private matter, and she should not have told you anything.

-Is she going to be in trouble?

-You can bet your life on it."

Jak's eyes widened, for he knew what Derna's anger looked like.

She looked at the unconscious girl lying next to her. She was beautiful, for sure, even though it wasn't easy to see it right now, under the traces of dried blood, and Derna had seen she was strong as well. It was not hard to imagine someone her age falling for her, but it wasn't the easiest choice for a Commander. _She told me she had nightmares every night. _Well, she probably already knew it. This was not Derna's business, nor was it Jak's or Shaïra's.

The room suddenly jolted, and Derna caught the sky girl to avoid her crashing against the wall. Jak lost his balance and fell next to her. She felt Clarke's body shiver and was relieved to see her open her eyes, as the room was shaken again, more violently. Jak grabbed his gun and Clarke's one.

Clarke got up, freeing herself from Derna's grip. She had been on one of those rooms before, and that was not how she remembered the end of the trip. It probably had been sabotaged from the island, despite her shooting of the panel control. Once again, they felt a violent jolt, and half of the room disintegrated, projecting Jak and her on the sand of the desert. Few meters away from where they landed, they saw the room burst in white flames that burned her eyes. She heard Jak scream his mentor's name before dashing to the place of the explosion. She got on her feet and followed him. Her legs barely managed to carry her.

The sand below the explosion had melted, making the debris of wall impossible to approach. Derna was crawling to them, and Clarke saw she was leaving a trail of blood behind her. Jak ran to his mentor, to help her get away from the burning sand, and Clarke imitated him. The second she got to the Grounder woman, though, she understood there was nothing she could do to help. Derna's chest, stomach and legs were burned so deep her bones were showing, and she could only manage to call Jak's name. Clarke saw the kid was crying.

-Jak, re-remember… Eris, chief of the clan." She spat dark blood that flowed on her chin. "-You protect… Sky girl."

Jak nodded with all the force he could put in it, tears running on his face, and said religiously the Gounder death sentence, holding his mentor's hand until she stopped breathing. Then he turned to Clarke, wiping his tears out with the back of his hand. His eyes stayed dry after that.

"-Let's go. You cannot walk in the desert dressed like that, your head needs to be covered or the sun will kill you. And you are wearing black clothes. Take your jacket off, we will use my shirt to protect our heads."

Clarke stared at him with some kind of amazement. He just saw a woman he obviously cared for die in pain in front of him, and yet it barely took him a second to bascule in survival mode again. So strong, she thought. They are so strong. Or maybe Indra was right, and we were just too protected in the Arch, too soft. Maybe our children will be that strong. All new generations ready to suffer like that. Or maybe we need to fight all the wars before peace may come, and no one ever has to be that strong again.  
If an eleven years old kid was that resilient, she had to be at least as strong as him.

They did as Jak said, and she stood up on her shaking legs.

"-Are you alright, Sky Princess?"

-Just Clarke is fine. I'm alright. Let's go."

And she was fine, for few hours, before the temperature started to rise. At least she felt like it was, but when she asked Jak, he said he didn't feel the difference. She kept walking anyway. The kid knew exactly what direction to follow to get back to the forest and she was just following, thinking of how harsh the Grounder training had to be, for a kid that age to be as independent. The sun had just rose when the room dropped them in the desert, and it was now going higher and higher in the sky, making the sand almost white around them.

It started as flashes of light, or rather spots of lights appearing and moving in front of her eyes. Jak was still walking at the exact same rhythm, imperturbable, so she understood it wasn't really happening. Which meant she was having hallucinations. She felt the warm sand against her face as she hit the ground, and Jak turned back to her. She hadn't realize she was falling until she actually found herself lying on the ground.

Jak's voice seemed to come from afar when he called her, and raising her eyes to him, she saw the sky darken above her, the light of the day fade away. The kid was now literally screaming right next to her.

"-Get up! Come on, Clarke, get up! You cannot die here!" He tried to lift her, but even though he was strong and her not that heavy, he was still a little kid, shorter than her from a good fifteen inches. "-Come on, the Commander will get pissed at me if I have to tell her I let you die here!"

That, at least, made it to Clarke's mind. She fought the coming darkness away, forcing herself to sit down.

"-What did you say?" She asked, and her own voice sounded strange, distorted.

"-The Commander will not be happy with me if you die while you are with me. My sister knows her, and she said that the Commander cares about you.

-Well, I don't know your sister, but she is wrong," Clarke said. Then the world disappeared and she was only kept awake by Jak slapping her. He opened wide eyes and put his hand on her forehead.

"-Wow, no wonder you felt hot! It is like touching the sand of this desert when the sun hits the most! But you still need to get up. We have to keep walking. We are not that far, come on."

He helped her stand and she managed to start walking again. This time, he stayed right next to her, watching her with all his heart. She found it touching, how hard he was trying to follow Derna's last will. Still, that will might be impossible to fulfill and she needed to consider it.

"-Jak, if I can't make it…

-Do not say that!" He protested, frowning. "-I will protect you until we arrive to your people!"

-Sure, but listen to me anyway. That thing," She showed him the golden flashdrive she retrieved from Alie. "-You'll have to take it to my people." Now that she was thinking about it, she didn't know who was in charge, now. Still her mother? Kane? Bellamy, maybe? Either way, she knew she could count on Bellamy to act fast and efficiently. "-You will give it to Bellamy Blake. Say it.

-I will give it to Bellamy Blake. But I will not need to remember this.

-I hope you're right."

She thought of the camp, suddenly. She had so little time, since the moment she escaped with Galton and the other prisoners, to think than she didn't really pictured the return to Camp Jaha. She had no choice, but she still didn't feel ready. At all. How could she even face them? Bellamy and Monty, that she dragged into a mass murder, Jasper, more than any of them, Octavia that she almost let get killed in Tondc, Raven…

Her heart started racing for no reason, so hard it made her dizzy again. Jak looked at her all worried, and she smiled at him, trying to look reassuring. There was still nothing else than the sand around them, as far as she could see. Yet they continued walking for more than an hour as Clarke's heart kept going crazy in her chest. It made every step she took feel like a victory, and also like it could be the last one.

Her mind slowly drifted away, like she was falling asleep, from that endless road of sand, and for an undefined amount of time, she found herself back in the Arch, before it all started, when she thought she would spend her entire life in space, longing for the ground. She shivered when going back to reality under the desert's sun. Although her skin was burning, her insides seemed to be getting colder and colder and she thought that she may never have to face the other Archers again. As time passed, the idea of walking all the way to them seemed more and more of a fantasy. But she kept putting one foot before the other, again and again, until Jak spoke up.

"-Clarke, do not move."

She stopped right away, frightened by his tone. She followed her look, and saw, under the sand, a long bump moving in their direction. Jak shot it several times, but the subterranean thing kept moving to them.

"-Don't be afraid," He said to Clarke. "-They are attracted by movements. I will make him follow me so you can escape.

"-What? No!"

He didn't even seemed to hear her and started to climb the dune as fast as he could, and the beast followed him without any hesitation. Clarke ran after him, faster that she thought she would be able too, but that was still not enough.

In an eruption of sand, the beast got away from the ground. It was a kind of armor-skinned worm, bigger than a human, and it rose from the sand as propelled out of it, higher than Jak, before falling on the kid. Clarke raised her gun to shoot it, trying first to hurt the body, but the bullets were barely scratching its grey skin. The thing was moving above Jak, stuck underneath it, and Clarke threw herself on its back to shot its head. She felt the skin of her thigh rip open on one of the sharp edges of the stonelike skin of the creature, but didn't pay attention, and emptied her gun on the beast's head. It screamed. Not like any animal she ever heard, it was like a mineral scream that ended in a disgusting liquid rumble. The beast convulsed twice and stopped moving. Clarke let herself fall from its back and kicked it with all her forces, trying to get it away from Jak. The beast was too heavy to move, so she kneeled next to it and tried to lift it enough to get Jak out.

When she managed to lift he corpse of the beast enough for Jak to have space to get away, she saw that in its fall, it had deployed a row of claws that looked like they were made of stone. They had penetrated deep in Jak's chest when the beast let itself fall on him, and the kid was already dead. Clarke ripped him from the embrace of the beast, holding him in her arms. His eyes were still open, but his hand had let go of his gun.

She started crying the moment she saw him dead, and she thought there was no way she could stop. She had a dead child in her arms, a child who got himself killed to protect her. How many more lives was she going to take before someone finally ended hers? She should have died in this desert, not the two Grounders that saved her life. She should have died long ago. Everything would have been better if she just died when their ship first landed on Earth. She could not possibly carry on after all that happened, all that she did, she thought. And as she was thinking it, she let her eyes wander on the desert around. And she saw, from the top of the dune they were on, the line of trees that was the beginning of the forest. She knew exactly where she was, now.

It would barely be an hour walk to their first landing site. She didn't know, really didn't know if she could make it, for her heart was beating completely irregularly, she was starting to struggle for every breath and the light had begun twisting again wherever she looked, but she had that golden flashdrive in her pocket, that might save her people from Alie and her Overseas Men. She didn't have the right to give up.

_Just to the landing site_, she thought. If she could get there, it wouldn't matter anymore that she lived or died. Someone from the camp would eventually find her body and the flashdrive with it. No matter what would happen to her, she was going to the first Sky people camp.


	13. Chapter 13

She watched to the last of them enter the camp. They had just walked all the way from Mount Weather in the night, in the sunrise, in the bright day. Right before they left, she had been more than busy, preparing the wounded ones for the trip, checking on every one of them. She counted them all, all the ones she just got back, all the soldiers that came to Mount Weather. She didn't think about anything else than finally bringing them home, run away from this place forever, leave all of this behind as fast as they could.

Then, they started walking in the dark of the woods, not in silence like Grounders could have, but not talking either. Sometimes, just few words about something to avoid on their way, or to make sure everybody was following, but for most of the night, there was only their walking noises, leaves and branches under breaking under their feet. So Clarke started thinking. Started remembering. She turned to Mount Weather, picturing what she was leaving behind her. _I want the Mountain Men dead. All of them. _That was what she had said to Lexa. That was what she did. She came, murdered them all and left unscathed. _All of them. _Hundreds of persons, with their lifes, their personnalities and stories, their loved ones. She indifferently killed those who were ready to live on the lives of others and good people who endangered their lives to help strangers, to do the right thing. She always thought she was part of the last category. But tonight, like a confirmation of her choice in Tondc, she chose to ensure survival even if it meant crushing anyone standing in her way. She had made her people a clan of killers.

The dawn progressively enlightening the sky didn't wash away the horrors of the night, at least not for Clarke. She hoped that it seemed like the first day of a new life for her people, them and their family all on the ground, finally free of the war they entered in barely two hours after their landing. For her, it was only the first day after she unleashed death on people that, in their majority, had only been trying to survive, just like her. Just like anyone on this planet. She proved that, exactly like them, she would take innocent lives to survive. So what made them deserving to die when she was getting to walk away with her people?

And what made her feel so angry, so hateful towards Lexa for putting her people's safety before everything else, when Clarke had just done the exact same thing?

That thought made Clarke realize how alone she was gonna be to face all of those she had hurt. How alone she was gonna be when she would have to stand in front of them and explain that this alliance she forced down on every one's throat, this alliance she lied, let die and killed for, just blew up on their faces, making all of it useless and all of them another clan of killers walking the Earth. She couldn't even blame Lexa for doing exactly what she had done moments later. Clarke had trusted her blindly, but it wasn't Lexa who was to blame for that. It was Clarke, for not knowing better, most of all for falling so hard for the girl. There was at least one truth in all that Lexa had said to her. Love was weakness. And by allowing herself to be weak, Clarke had condemned hundreds of people.

Yet, as she walked away from Mount Weather, from the bloodied bodies she left there, Lexa was still on her mind. She was still thinking about her even though she just made the thoughts of all those people disappear in seconds. How lower could she possibly get?

Octavia passed her in her way to her brother, without as much as a look. Clarke couldn't blame her. How could the others look at her without being reminded of what they owed their survival to? It raised the question of what she was gonna do, once they would be back. She won't be in charge anymore –never again, she thought, she would never take any of those decisions again- but what would she do? How would she live among all of them, how would she pick up the pieces, how would she start to live again outside of battle? She couldn't see any place for her in Camp Jaha.

_That_ decision wasn't a hard one to make. The only victim it could make was herself, and that didn't seem like such a bad thing on this day. As for Lexa… She buried the thought as deep as she could. She didn't get to feel that kind of thing. Not when it led her to that mess, not when she took away everything from so many people, she didn't get to have something like that, even if it was just untold feelings.

And for days, weeks, she did not think about the Commander. She thought, every second she was awake, about Mount Weather, about Tondc, but not once she clearly thought of her. It was there, always, in every thought she had, but never once in the top of her mind. The feel of Lexa was printed on her mind and she couldn't ban it, but not once she allowed herself to think of those moments together, to recall what she had felt, or the sound of Lexa's voice, her presence… She buried all of this, and before her capture and her meeting with the other prisoners, it seemed like it worked. Like she could erase the Commander from her life by wanting it hard enough.

Lexa's picture on the computer and Jak's words had shattered this shield she built.

Now, as she was trying to get herself to the landing site –she would damn crawl all the way there if she had to rather than let Alie do to her friends what she did to Jaha- she found out that Lexa's thought was the only one she could focus on. She was hanging on for her friends, for her mother, but every time she pictured them, they would all flash in front of her eyes, one after the other, and her mind would keep jumping to one another, unable to keep focusing on her walk. When it happened for the third time, she lost balance and fell on the ground, imaginary lights dancing around her. Her body was burning so much that the sand of the desert felt cold against her skin. She stayed where she fell, trying not to close her eyes, for she wasn't sure she'll open them again. The drilling pain in her head that started right after Jak's death kept growing stronger, and she couldn't set her mind on anything, couldn't focus enough to get up, to even think to get up. Then Jak's words popped in her mind, clear enough to make her think for a second that she really was hearing them. _The Commander cares about you. _And just like that, Lexa was back in every one of her heartbeats. _Your heart shows no sign of weakness_. Clarke had a short bitter laugh at this thought, while trying to get herself together and get back up. Think about Lexa was clearing her mind, not making her feel any better, but keeping her focused. And as it turned out, it was the easiest thing to think about ever. Every second they spent together was there, only waiting for her to stop blocking it. She didn't have any forces left to fight it. Forcing herself on her feet, she just let memories flow and started walking again. Lexa the first time they met, the way she always looked at Clarke, Lexa's kiss and her hand on Clarke's neck and the face she had when they were locked up in the gorilla's cage, the closest of Lexa's smile that Clarke ever saw. She wondered what _that _looked like, a real smile on Lexa's face. She didn't really want to find out, she reminded herself. She didn't want anything from the Commander –it was just to keep herself going. Although, now that they were clearly targeted by the same enemy, maybe they really would see each other again. Right now, even though she was still set on never letting such a weakness meddle with her judgment again, she couldn't hide from herself that she wanted such a thing to happen. She was probably going to die before seeing anyone anyway, so what she allowed herself to think didn't really matter.

By the time she finally reached the first trees, she was holding on to consciousness harder than ever. She let out a sob when her hand reached the trunk of tree, feeling more than she ever did the roughness and solidity of it, enjoying the shadow it provided. She was almost there. Almost there.

…...

"-What are you doing?" Lexa asked to Wolf, as the girl bent on one knee to reach something at her feet. The soldiers Kane had sent with them were following them, but at distance, as Lexa asked. She didn't want anyone to hear her talking to the other Grounder, and on their way they did discuss Wolf's meeting with Allander and possibly Luna, and that way, if the Overseas Men were to attack out of nowhere, they couldn't surround both the grounders and the Archers.

"-Taking that snail out of the way.

-Why?

-So it won't be crushed by our followers.

-I got that. What I meant was why are you wasting time when you have somewhere to be?

-It just took me three seconds to save a life. That's hardly wasted time."

Lexa did not roll her eyes, but her look said clearly enough what she thought about the snail rescue not being a waste of time. Wolf had started walking by her side again, her horse following them. She was holding its halter, but the animal didn't look like he would have deviated anyway. Bigger risk was that it would stop to eat some leaves, maybe.

"-How did you know to come here, and not in Polis?" She asked few minutes before their arrival. "-What were you coming for, in the first place?

-The sky people ship was seen from far away. I was in the south, even further than Allander's territory, when it happened, and every one saw it even there. I thought I should try to learn about that, and left to the South Lands. They know about the Sky people, there, but not about the Mountain Men or your alliance. At least they didn't when I left. The Wastelands just appeared, so I didn't stay long. I wanted you to know about it, and see if it was the same in your territory. I ran across bits of the Nomad Clan in the desert, and they told me about the alliance and the victory against Mount Weather. And about the lost ones wandering in the desert, too.

-This does not mean you knew I was there.

-I did not. I thought I'd be friendly with the Sky people, help them find their friends, learn what I could while I was there, you know, establish good relations before going to you. They are here to stay, obviously, so I wanted to make sure they had use of me. Information's useful to everybody.

-Do not say that to their Council. It does make you look like a spy.

-Only the right information to the right people.

-I remember."

The barricades of the first Sky people camp were already in sight when they heard the noises of someone walking in the forest. It was too noisy to be a grounder, and the two girls froze, listening. Both of them had unsheathed their swords the second they noticed it, even though the sound wasn't that close.

"-It's not the Overseas Men," Wolf stated, in a low voice "-We'd be under attack already. And whoever it is, not that dangerous, cause that was clearly the sound of someone falling.

-There's a pauna in this forest," Lexa answered, whispering as well. "-I fought it few weeks ago. It could be one of its victims". Wolf's eyes widened as she silently moved, placing Lexa behind her and closer to the horse.

"-There is only one person. Go warn the soldiers and check the area," Lexa told her. "-I got that."

She carefully took few steps in the direction of the noises, as silent as she could be. She couldn't see the potential enemy yet, but she quickly crossed the distance between them, moving fast between the trees to stay invisible from where the person was standing. Once at a safe distance, just close enough to attack by surprise if she needed to, she took a look at the walker.

First of all and straight from her heart, before her head had time to start wondering, came a flow of joy at the sight of Clarke. She had no clue how it happened, but the Sky Princess was right there, right in front of her, alive. She was alive.

Lexa threw herself in the open, letting go of her prudent attitude, to face the girl. Only then, the memory of their last encounter reminded itself to her, and only then she noticed Clarke's pale face, her fragile grip on the tree next to her. Her eyes met Clarke's, for a second, twisting her heart, before the Sky girl's hand let go of the tree, and Lexa's thoughts all disappeared as she rushed to her, as she caught her in her arms before she hit the ground, as she closed her arms on Clarke.

_So now I'm having serious hallucinations_ was the thought that crossed Clarke's mind when she suddenly saw the Commander in front of her. This was the clearest thought she had in a while. She didn't hear anyone coming, and it really looked like the girl just appeared out of nowhere to face her. Then again, she would probably have missed an entire grounder clan next to her, right now. She had been going in and out of consciousness for the past minutes, and she had no idea how many times she fell. But she could see the wooden palisade of their first camp, so she would get up again and again, sometimes just for few steps.

She was holding on to a tree, trying to breathe enough to take another step, when the Commander appeared, and the only coherent thought she managed to have was that she was now completely hallucinating. Next thing she knew, her legs failed her, her hand slipped on the tree, and Lexa's arms were wrapped around her, her strong contact making Clarke truly realize what was going on.

_Wait, she's real… How…_

"-Clarke" Lexa muttered, as if she wasn't sure. The girl's body was shaking in her arms, so strongly Lexa couldn't tell if she was crying her heart out or actually having small convulsions. The unnatural heat she felt coming from Clarke's body, even through her clothes, let her think it was the second one.

Using the last bit of force she had left, Clarke slowly raised her hand to grab Lexa's back, as she did under the Commander's tent what seemed like a century ago, to _feel _her. She couldn't wrap her mind around her presence and it was only when her hand touched Lexa that she was sure.

_Oh, it could be worse, _was her very last thought. It could be worse. She could think of dozens ways to die that would be worse than just letting everything go, in Lexa's arm. So she just stopped fighting, on that last thought, and even the feeling of Lexa next to her faded away.

Lexa felt Clarke's right hand on her back, right before all tension in the Sky Princess's body faded away, and suddenly all of her weight was put on Lexa's arms. She felt a cold wave of terror run down her spine as she frenetically checked on Clarke's pulse. It was there, completely erratic, but there. She laid the girl down, her upper body on Lexa's knees, and checked every bit of her, looking for injuries. Her face and clothes were covered with blood, which scared Lexa at first, but she quickly saw that almost none of it was Clarke's. She only had an injured leg, and it didn't even seem like a deep wound, and yet her breathing was labored, her heartbeat crazy and her skin burning. Lexa called for Wolf as loudly as she could, and started talking to Clarke, with no clue of what she was saying, just trying to stop the girl from slipping to far away in unconsciousness. Wolf arrived as Lexa was saying to Clarke that she was safe, that she was gonna bring her to her people, that she wouldn't let anything happen to her, that she would not leave her. Her heart was going crazy as well as she held the girl in her arms, begging her not to die.

"-Is she…

-Help me get her on your horse. She needs a healer as soon as possible," Lexa said without listening. All her attention was reserved to the barely alive body she was holding.

Being moved made Clarke react a little, and she opened her eyes an instant, but her head almost immediately fell back on Lexa's shoulder, as the Commander tightened her grip on her. The weight of Clarke's body against hers was the most wonderful thing she felt in weeks and yet so terrifying it took Lexa's breath away.

The soldiers tried to object, unwilling to leave her go alone with Clarke, but she silenced them by asking if any of them was capable to ride that horse to Camp Jaha faster than her or to follow them at the speed of a galloping horse.

Clarke woke up only once in their trip back, to the sound of Octavia's voice. When they arrived next to Camp Jaha, they were spotted by Sky girl, who first didn't realize who Lexa was with. She came closer, ready to ask to the Commander what she was doing here by herself, on someone else's horse, when she saw Clarke's recognizable wavy blond hair. She froze before running to them.

"-Oh my god, Clarke! Is she all right? Is she alive?" Her voice was higher than usual, oscillating between excitement and fear. "-What happened?"

-Not now. Is there any way to get to the infirmary without letting everyone know about it?

-Yeah. If you just follow the barriers, there's a part behind the Arch we, hum, cut open in case of… Anyway, it's not far from the infirmary."

Lexa had already signified the horse to gallop when Clarke called Octavia's name, so low the two other girls almost missed it, and moved in her arms, reaching with difficulty to her pocket. Octavia came closer, for Clarke to hear her.

"-Clarke, hey. How…" She was interrupted when Clarke handed her something, or rather let her arm fall in her direction, her fist clenched. Octavia gave her an interrogative look, and Clarke talked again.

"-Give it…" She took a breath so labored that Lexa could have sworn she'd never manage to get any oxygen from that. "-To Bellamy. It…"

Octavia's eyes widened with fear when Clarke passed out again, stopped from falling off the horse only by Lexa's tight embrace. Octavia had time to grab the golden thing before it fell on the ground when Clarke let go of it, and, with a look at Lexa, left to find her brother.

Even by the way Octavia indicated her, Lexa had to pass a certain number of people to get to the infirmary, and at the commotion her passage provoked, she knew at least few of them had had time to recognize Clarke. She saw Kane get out of the room, still talking to Abby inside, and turn to her, wondering why she was back with the horse. Thankfully, he was a fast thinker and she didn't need to explain him anything right now. He rushed to her, they both got Clarke off the horse, and they entered the infirmary as he carried the Sky Princess in his arms. Abby's reaction was not at all what Lexa expected it to be, for the woman instantly turned from a shocked mother to a healer and nothing else.

They laid Clarke on one of the beds, and Abby started to interrogate Lexa, as she checked her daughter's vitals. Lexa told her the wound to her thigh didn't seem serious, less than her high fever.

"-Has it been that high since you found her?

-I think it worsened. She woke up just minutes ago, but otherwise she has been unconscious all the way."

As her, Abby seemed more concerned by the fever, and she sent Kane get a lot of fresh water. With Lexa's help, she took Clarke's clothes off, leaving her body almost naked to make sure the blood she was covered in wasn't hers.

"-Jackson, bring me the equipment to take blood samples. We need to figure out what makes her temperature rise like that." She went to the leg wound, that was easy to treat, and started cleaning it. "-And to get her colder," She added for herself and Lexa. "-Human body is not made to survive that." She seemed to have forgotten who Lexa was, caring only for her daughter and what she could do to help her, but she still spoke to her. "-Are you staying?

-Yes."

Without the slightest hesitation.

"-Then make yourself useful. See the pile of towel over there?

-Yes.

-When Kane comes back with the water, you use them to cool her down. One on her head, neck, chest, stomach. There's not a lot we can do to make fever go down, but if we don't, she won't survive the next hours. Understood?

-Yes," Lexa said again. No way she was letting _a fever _take Clarke away from her.

The fire was back in her chest as she began to do as Abby said, and she knew it wouldn't leave her until she saw Clarke open her eyes again, for good. It wouldn't stop, and neither would she, should she spent a third, fourth, fifth sleepless night. Clarke was here by her side, alive, and that was the second chance Lexa craved for. She would never let it slip away from her.


	14. Chapter 14

Lew, one of the chief scientist assistant, was the first one to notice how wrong things were around them.

The scientific team had left Camp Jaha a little more than twenty-four hours ago and they crossed only one village on their way to the closest Wastelands. There was five scientist from the Arch in their expedition, including the higher of them, Da Silva, and three Grounder warriors that the Commander send with them. Lew was the youngest and lower-placed of the Archers present. If life had went the way it was supposed to, he wouldn't even have had this job before another two years –and that was optimistic. But the Arch crashed, so many of them were dead, and, among hundreds of collaterals effects, Lew had been promoted to the scientific team.  
He volunteered for this expedition. Because he was craving to escape from the Camp he had been stuck in for weeks now, because Grounders were fascinating to him, and because in all his life, he never saw anything as beautiful as the ground, and he couldn't stand the idea it would be ruined by nukes before he had the time to see it. So he was there, hoping he could make a difference. If he couldn't, at least he would get to know Earth a little better.  
They already walked longer than he ever did in his life, but he didn't mind. He found it refreshing. The Grounders barely spoke three words since they left, while the scientists couldn't stop talking. All they knew about nuclear weapons was mere theory, and they had to imagine from scratch a procedure to reach, collect and isolate the cores. They had been discussing it for hours, going over and over every detail again, to make sure everyone would do its part exactly the way they were supposed to.

They crossed a second village, but unlike the first one, it was desert and silent. The reaction of the Grounders warriors let the scientists understand how abnormal this was. Da Silva tried to ask them about it, but the warrior that took the commandment, Conn, shushed him, and the Archer didn't insist, realizing that they were seriously worried. The Grounders made them stay outside of the village while they carefully entered it. Lew could see them enter one of the hut at the periphery of the village and stay in it a while before going out and do the same in few other huts. One of the warriors then came out and gestured them to come. The five scientists crossed the distance to join the Grounders in the hut. There was a family of Grounders in it, a couple and two small kids, but none of them spoke a word. Barnes, one of the scientist, started to ask what this was about, when one of the kids, the taller one, slowly raised his head to them, and the scientists gasped in shock. The child looked sick, feverish, too thin, his skin barely colored, but it was his eyes that took the Archers off guard. His irises were completely silvery. Not grey, not even a shiny shade of grey, but silvery as if they really were made of metal. One of the Grounder patted his shoulder, roughly, and the kid had no reaction.

"-They all are like that," He grunted to the Archers. "-All the huts we went in, and probably all the others."

It turned out, when they searched the rest of the village, that he was right. In every one on the huts, there were Grounders with silvery eyes, who seemed to have no reaction to the outside world, all pale and devoured by fever. The team gathered outside the village, creeped out by the silence around them, to discuss what they were going to do.

The Wasteland they were supposed to go to was only few hours away, now, way closer than Camp Jaha. Yet, what happened to all those people seemed completely unnatural –fever, OK, but no one ever heard about a disease that changed the color of the eyes of the sick ones- not unlike the threat they were here to tame. They knew for sure Grounders had biological weapons; it could have been an attack from another clan (the scientists knew the clans were all allied, but their trust in Grounder alliance wasn't really high). Or it could have been related to the Overseas Men too. It didn't look like anything they ever heard about radioactivity, one of the scientists signaled. Actually, those eyes didn't look like anything they ever heard about at all.

"-Neither do the teleporting men," Da Silva reminded. He was one of those who thought it was connected and Lew couldn't contradict him. He didn't know a lot about the Ground, but even here, the odds for several big-scaled unexplainable events being just coincidences were thin.

"-What does it mean, then? That this woman who leads them had added biological warfare to nuclear war? Her Overseas Men just go here and there, destroying ground here and spreading diseases here? That doesn't make any sense."

That was the moment, as his colleague tried to put words on what they saw in the village, that Lew finally realized that the villagers weren't the only thing that was wrong around them. He jumped on his feet, surprising even the three Grounders.

"-They're not spreading disease where they don't put radioactive cores," He said as he was thinking it, his eyes widening with the realization. "-It's the same thing. Look around us. Look at the ground."

He scratched the ground with his feet, not wanting to actually touch it. What made him understand was a weird coloration where he was sitting. It could just have been strange-colored mud, but the greyness of it reminded him the eyes of the villagers. His feet showed, underneath the first layer of ground, a silvered vein. All the scientists and even the Grounders jumped away from it as soon as they saw what he wanted to show them.

"-What the hell is this?" Spat one of his colleague.

"-I'm not sure, this is just an idea. But I think it's coming from the Wastelands. They're not what we thought it was.

-I'm confused about what we thought anyway, at this point. You think they're spreading that… disease that affected the village through the ground from the Wastelands?

"-I am no _scientist_," Conn said, articulating the word carefully, "-But if what you are saying is that this silver thing has made everyone here sick, then we should not stay so close."

The rest of the team precipitately backed away from the silvered vein.

"-I meant _really _not so close.

-What about the villagers?" One of the scientists protested.

"-What about them? Do you know how to help them?

-No, but…

-Do you know how not to get sick if we stay near that thing?

-We don't even know if there is anything true in Lew's idea!

-I do not wish to verify it with my life. Silvered eyes, silvered river in the ground, Wastelands close. That does not seem like a coincidence.

-We can't leave an entire village to death! Those are your people! What kind of human being are you?

-The kind that stays alive."

They still stayed a while, further away from the silver vein on the ground, trying to figure out what to do. They needed to know whether it really took its source in the Wasteland or not, and if not, to figure out what the hell it was and where the hell it came from. And they had to tell the Council what they just stumbled upon. Finally, they decided that the mission would go on as it was first supposed to, and that once there, they would try to deactivate the Wasteland like they planned if it was possible. They would see if the silvered vein came from there, and whatever the results, leave to report to the Arch as soon as possible. Before leaving the village, though, they all put their protective suits on. It was supposed to protect them from the radiations of the Wastelands, and they didn't know if it would change anything to the effect of the silver vein, but none of them felt remotely safe near it, and this reassured them a little.

As Lew supposed, the silvered river in the ground continued all the way to the Wasteland. They ran across few embranchments, and realized it really was like a river, coming from a source and dividing itself in several veins. As they got closer from the Wasteland, the veins seemed more and more, and by the time they arrived in sight of the wooden walls, the all ground seemed to be hiding a silver layer right underneath the surface. The team never got to follow it to its source, though, nor to try the method they prepared.

As they started to approach the burned lands around the wooden walls that enclosed the Wasteland, Conn, the leading Grounder, alerted them that they were being followed, and by the sound of it, not just by few persons. The two others Grounders left the group to get a closer look at their followers, and came back running, exhorting them to flee as well. They all took their protectives suits off to run faster, except for one of the scientists, Barnes, who was too scared by the proximity of the Wasteland to do so. They raced through the woods until they got out, right on the burned lands, and kept running to the walls. As they crossed half the distance, their followers started to get out of the woods as well. They were few dozens, all running as if it was the last thing they would ever do, and Lew recognized, terrified, the sick villagers. Barnes seemed to change his mind about the protective suit once he saw the troupe behind him, and tried to get if off of him, without stopping its run.

The flow of people caught up with him, and Lew lost sight of him as the villagers submerged the man. They didn't even seem to slow down, but once they passed, there was only a mess of white tissue and red flesh where the scientist had been few seconds ago.

The other Archers, as well as the Grounders, ran even faster before the villagers, and Da Silva took out his gun to shoot randomly in the crowd, certain he would take few of them down anyway. Few fell, the others continued to run like nothing happened, as if they weren't susceptible to get shot and killed, as if one of the fallen ones wasn't a child of four years old top, whose parents were probably in the crowd too. The team soon understood why it didn't matter, though. The fallen ones hit the ground and seemed to merge with it. Of course, that was just what Lew could see from the distance, but he was certain he saw the silvered layer of the ground shine on the bodies of the villagers, and they all got up, before starting running again, behind the rest of the troupe. Lew was running faster than he ever did, his chest was already on fire, and he knew it was the same for all his colleagues. The Grounders were doing better, but even they would soon get tired by this impossibly long dash, and none of the villagers seemed to slow down, even the ones that _just got shot._

In few minutes, the flow of sick villagers had caught up with the scientific team, and despite the desperate shooting that followed, they torn all the Archers and Grounders to pieces. When the last one died, the villagers all gathered close to the wall of the Wasteland and kneeled on the silvered ground for several minutes, all covered by the silver material, before rising together and slowly leaving the place of the massacre, going back in the direction of their villages. Their eyes all had the same unnatural silver color.

…

Bellamy barged into the infirmary less than fifteen minutes after Lexa arrived, so agitated that Jackson stopped him at the threshold, trying to calm him down before he walked like that into a room full of sick and wounded people. Bellamy seemed like he was about to hit him and make his way into the infirmary anyway, and Abby asked –ordered, really- to Lexa to go see him and make sure the commotion stopped. Lexa hated the idea of leaving Clarke for even a minute, but if Abby decided she didn't want her here, she would have to leave for good, Commander or not, so going against Abby's will was the last thing to do.

Behind Bellamy, she saw Monty and Octavia, as well as a bunch of the first Sky People whose names she didn't know. Bellamy calmed down a little when he saw her, but she could see he wouldn't hesitate to force his way in.

"-Lexa…" He started, before remembering they were not wasted and alone in the middle of the night. "-Commander. Is Clarke really here?

-Yes."

He took a deep breath, and he suddenly seemed younger when he talked again.

"-Is she alright?" His eyes seemed to get even darker than they already were when she hesitated to answer.

"-Please, let me see her.

-This is not a good time. She would not know you are here. I will send for you when she wakes up." She didn't spoke angrily, but in a calm and firm way, and she stood across the door, blocking his way, her eyes locked in his. The truth was she didn't want anyone to see how bad Clarke was, especially not him. It would only upset him when he needed to have a clear mind. He watched her, her implacable Commander look, and understood he would never get through her.

"-At least, tell me if she's hurt.

-She is. But she will be fine. I believe Octavia and you have something to do, now."

He stayed looking at her for a moment, and she feared he would try to get in anyway, but he finally turned to her sister, who nodded to him. They both left, with few of the teenagers that came with them, leaving Monty, and another Archer. She recognized Galton, the one who escaped the Overseas Men island with Clarke.

"-You'll warn us as soon as she wakes up?" Monty asked, looking for reassurance. Lexa approved but didn't move from the door, and she didn't before all the Skyers left. Only when she saw them disappear from her sight, she went back in the infirmary, back to Clarke.

The towels full of fresh water were already warming up at the contact of her skin, and Lexa changed them while Abby finished to stitch the wound on the girl's thigh.

"-Hold her head so I can give her water. We have to keep her hydrated."

Lexa did as she asked, as delicately as she could. Clarke had no reaction, and at first, Lexa thought she wouldn't swallow anything, but they managed to make her drink most of the water Abby brought.

Clarke's face, neck and hands were still covered in blood, and Lexa went to find the softer towel of the pile to clean her, as Abby prepared her daughter's arm for a blood test. Jackson brought her the equipment she needed, as well as a small and flexible plastic band and when she asked him about it, he told Lexa it was to measure Clarke's temperature. The very idea of measuring heat was weird to her, but she didn't really care. She had hoped the contact of water on her face would wake Clarke up, or at least that she would have some kind of reaction, but there was nothing, nothing else than her breathing that didn't seem to bring her any oxygen, and that fever that was burning her body. Jackson had brought a machine full of wires as well, and he was now connecting the wires to Clarke's body through several electrodes he put on her chest. She took a step back to leave him depose the plastic band on Clarke's forehead, while Abby inserted the needle in her left arm. Lexa suddenly wished she brought a healer with her on her trip from Polis. The Sky People medicine was impressive, all right, but so _weird,_ so strange. It didn't feel like they really were doing anything, and it sure didn't feel like all those metallic and plastic things were doing any good to Clarke. Abby finished with Clarke's arm and gave the blood samples to Jackson, who hastened to take them in order to run tests, and the Sky woman then checked the thermometer. The shock on her face made Lexa froze.

"-How bad is it?" Her throat tightened so much she had trouble getting the words out loud. She noticed several red spots on Clarke's neck, the same that she saw on Trey, the warrior that the Overseas Men had knocked down with their devices. But he just had one, and there was eight of them on Clarke's skin.

"-Normal human temperature is 99,5, and human body can't stand a temperature above 111. She's at 107,5."

Suddenly, she didn't seem like a healer anymore, but just like a desperate woman. Lexa lowered her eyes to the girl laying down between them, feeling a wave of anger against the Overseas Men. That's when she noticed that one of the marks Clarke had on her neck wasn't from a device shock, but rather looked like the one her mother just made on her arm with the needle.

…

"-Raven! You need to come with me, now. Bring your tools.

-Look, Octavia, I'm… Clearly in the middle of something, here. Don't you see all the wires?

-I'm serious, now! And don't tell Wick.

-What…"

Raven found herself alone again as Octavia, without waiting for an answer, left the room, clearly expecting the other girl to follow her. She arranged as much as she could of her work, swearing while doing it, before getting up, and catching up with Octavia.

"-What the hell is this?"

Octavia checked there wasn't anyone close around to hear them before answering.

"-Clarke's back. She…

-What? Where is she?

-Infirmary. It doesn't look that good. Listen…

-Wait, you can't just tell me that and move on! We should go see her. _I'm_ going anyway.

-Lexa's won't let you in. Look, we need…

-You think I care about _Lexa_'s authorization?

-Damn it, let me talk, Raven! Clarke brought back a flashdrive that she gave me. We're gonna see what's on it, and we need you to unplug one of the computer from the others. That way, if there's a virus or any kind of trap, it will only affect the one computer.

-Wow. Something tells me the Council is not part of that decision.

-Is it a problem?

-Are you kidding me?"

Bellamy, Monty and Miller were waiting for the two girls, as well as Galton.

"-Haven't you warn Jasper?

-I wanted to, but… He's still not talking, not even looking at us. I didn't know how he would react."

The manipulation with the computer wasn't that complicated, and didn't take long to Monty and Raven, but carrying discreetly their newly self-appropriated machine to a room where they could use it without anyone seeing them was more problematic, especially with the guards all around the hallways. Octavia left and came back with Sander, Leal and Keagan, who she send distracting the soldiers so Bellamy and Monty could snuggle the computer out. Few minutes later, they were all in a room in one of the part of the Arch so damaged by the crash that no once used it. Raven tinkered the electric installation to get it to aliment the machine, and they installed it on a little table, not having found a desk.

"-Ok. Here we go." Bellamy took the little golden box Octavia gave it, and opened in the middle, letting the connecting part of the flashdrive appear. He gave it to Monty, who inserted it in the computer. The first seconds, nothing happened, and they all held their breath, but the computer recognized the device plugged in, and automatically opened the menu of files.

"-Yes! So what is it?

-There are a lot of protected files…

-Can you open them?

-I don't know. I'll check. Let's see the easy ones first."

The first file they opened was a numeric and extended version of the kill list. There were the same Grounders and Archers whose pictures they found, and few mores that they had never saw before.

"-Oh, great. Other targets.

-That might be good for us, though. The enemy of my enemy…"

They found the files containing pictures of the Wastelands, and saw something that Lexa hadn't mentioned when she described them, a weird silver coloration on the ground around, beyond the walls. It was on every picture. There was also a file full of numbers and symbols.

"-What is this?

-I don't know, they look like chemical formulas, but I don't know what… I mean, I'm not that good in science, when it's not about computers.

-They're poisons," Leal intervened from behind them. "-Liquid ones, except for the few lasts ones, they are spreadable versions. All those components have effects on human brain, but I don't know what the combination might do. Those are not supposed to be manipulable, actually. Don't look at me like that, I was training to be a chemist before all that.

-Oh, right! I remember you! You're the one from the Arrow station that's been imprisoned for traffic of homemade drugs!

-Guys, not the time," Bellamy reminded them. "-Leal, could one of those formulas be what they use in their KO devices?

"-What if it is?" Octavia asked.

"-Maybe with the formula, our scientists can create an antidote, or something that immunize us without having to take several shocks. Long shot, but it may worth the try.

-Oh, guys, that's not good," Monty interrupted before they had time to explore Bellamy's idea. "-I think those are the Overseas Men bases.

-That's not overseas, those are on the Coalition's territory!

-Monty, what is this?

-Let me check…"

Raven was the first one to figure out what all the numbers meant, but all the others realized as well in seconds.

"-That's…

-Is this what I think it is?

-Shit. This Overseas woman is _farming _people!

-Wait, no, it can't be…

-There are counts of all ages there! Look, the number of under twelve years old kids in each location, the number of teenagers, the number of births she needs, and that… What is it?

-Repartition. That's what she's gonna do with them, which ones will become soldiers, which ones she'll use for I don't know what, which ones she's just gonna get rid of, I guess they don't fit her criteria…

-God, there are thousands of them…

-Why would they fight for her? I mean, she raises them like animals!

-Maybe she protects them as well in those locations…

-Have you seen the size of those? I don't even know how she makes all those people fit in it, talk about protection! That's exploitation, at best!

-Well, maybe she feeds them with that bunch of brain poison from the other file."

Bellamy turned to Leal: "-Could that be possible? Could they be all under influence because of the poisons we found?

-I don't know, I barely saw the formulas. I have no idea what kind of effect those cocktails could have on someone.

-We have to show the Council all of that, anyway. The scientists still here will search that.

-We have to show them this on our terms, though. Their leadership won't get us anywhere. I mean, all they've done until now is talk, the only real action we had came from Lexa.

-Octavia, it's not the time for this.

-It is exactly the time for this. Seriously, this is a real war we're gonna have, what do you think will happen if Abby Griffin's in charge? We have Clarke back, now, Kane was always supportive of her. This is our shot. We have the information, we have the only one of us they'll accept –I can't believe I'm saying this- as leader.

-She's right, Bellamy," Raven continued. "-We'll have to deal with Grounders all over again, and Clarke is the one they know, the one they already allied with. And she's the only one who can overrule Kane and Abby without a revolution. We can't have the Council in charge, all they know how to do is talk. Clarke's far from perfect, but at least she acts. And doing what she says is what got us through the last war. And I'm not happy to say this either, so don't make me repeat it.

-Then we need to talk to her first. If she's not there with us to fire the Council, it won't work.

-Are we really doing this?" Monty asked. "-I mean, I'm all for Clarke and us taking the lead, but this is the Arch's government we're talking about.

-The Arch is no more than a big piece of metal crashed on the ground! May be time to adapt, now!

-We'll wait until she gets better, then, and as soon as she's up, we go for it. Is there anything else on the flashdrive you can access to?

-Not yet, it's all protected. But I'll work it out.

-OK. Octavia, Raven, and the three of you," He spoke to Leal, Keagan and Sander. "-You stay here with Monty and make sure no one enters here or even find you here. If anything happens, warn me immediately. I'll be at the infirmary."


	15. Chapter 15

« -Commander, Bellamy asks to talk to you. He's just outside the infirmary."

From where she was sitting, Lexa couldn't see the entrance of the room, nor the Sky boy next to it, but she had heard his voice in the hallway when he talked to Jackson.

"-Send him back, Jackson," Abby answered in her place. "-There's no need to upset everybody before we find out what she's been injected with and how to help her.

-I know, but he didn't ask about her. He asked specifically for the Commander."

Lexa frowned, before remembering what Clarke gave to Octavia. She didn't see what it was, and maybe the girl and her brother wanted to let her know about it. It was weird that they would talk to her rather than to their Council, but not that much. For all that she had seen of the Archers, Clarke's people, the young ones, weren't that quick to run to their eldest, preferring to do things their own way.

It was physically hard to leave Clarke behind, though. There was not a part of her that didn't want to ignore Bellamy's call and stay near the Sky princess, as if Lexa's presence changed anything. Yet she left her to meet with Bellamy, who was standing few meters away from the infirmary room, Galton behind him.

"-Bellamy. I told you you would be warned when she wakes up.

-We're not here for that. We need to talk. Not here, though, no one can hear us, not yet. Let's go to your room.

Lexa almost turned back to the infirmary behind her, to Clarke. There was no way to tell what could happen in her absence, if she left with Bellamy, even for a short time. But there was something urgent in the boy's voice, and she knew it had to be important. She couldn't let him know how worried –how terrified- she was about Clarke, terrified that if she left her once more, there would be no one to return to. So she just told him it had to be quick, and followed him to her own room.

"-You told me few days ago my people needed to be led by someone who would take the right decisions, do you remember?" He asked as soon as Galton closed the door behind them.

-I do. What are you saying?

-We don't think Kane and his puppets fit that description anymore.

-And your sister and you feel that you do?

-No. Not by myself. Octavia, Raven, the ones who fought your army and Mount Weather, feel that Clarke is the one we need to lead us. Last time, the Council had to let her in charge partly because she had your forces to back her up. Will you support her this time?

-Are you asking me to be part of a coup in a clan that I am not part of, Bellamy of the Sky people? A clan whose trust I am trying to get back?

-You never had it in the first place. They're only allied with you because they're even more scared by the Overseas Men than they are by you. If it wasn't the case, you wouldn't have crossed the door of this camp. Clarke and I know better. I know better. I know we need each other, not just for war. We will need each other when this is over, for peace. That is what I'm asking you. A true alliance, with us. Once Clarke's in charge, we'll be able to offer you that.

-Clarke cannot be in charge of anything now," She admitted, while thinking of what he just said. She didn't need to look very far into it to see how better her situation here would be if his idea was to function. Even her people would accept the peace easier if the Council wasn't in charge. He was right about the need for peace too, she knew the vague statu quo they had right now couldn't last very long. Nor her people nor theirs would accept it as it was, and when the Overseas Men wouldn't be a common threat anymore, the Wood Clan would eventually want their lands back, the lands the Sky people were living in now.

-I know, I'm not saying this will happen _right now_, but as soon as she's good enough to…" He interrupted his sentence as Lexa's eyes slipped away from his. "-What?" He asked, clearly trying to hide the fear in his voice. "-She _is _getting better, isn't she? You said she'd be fine!

-Her mother healed her wounds fine. But…

-But what? Have you kept me out of the infirmary while my friend is dying in it?

-She is not dying!"

She lost her self-control for a second when he said that, and she screamed the words at him, trying to convince herself way more than him, and he realized it immediately. "-She is not dying," She tried again, more calmly, but the damage was done.

"-You don't know," He said in a blank voice. "-Why? What is wrong with her, if she's not seriously hurt?"

There was no way around the truth, except shut him off for good, and that was not an option if she wanted a chance to keep him as an ally. She looked at Galton, who stayed silent from the beginning, and Bellamy understood she didn't trust him with the truth.

"-Galton, leave us a minute, please. I'll call you." Bellamy waited for the other boy to close the door behind him before facing Lexa again. "-Tell me."

Lexa was still reluctant to let the truth out, knowing that if she was to tell him, the rest of his friends would know the moment he would leave the room, but he was waiting for an answer, and he was probably capable to force the access to the infirmary if he didn't have one.

-The Overseas Men injected her with something, a kind of poison, and for now, every test her mother and the other healer did on her blood showed nothing. She has a fever so high her mother thinks it is killing her. They say it is because her body is fighting too hard against the poison. And none of them knows what to do to help her."

As she was talking, she could see Bellamy's face froze, as if something struck him.

"An Overseas Men poison?" He repeated when she finished.

"-Yes." This was not the reaction she had expected. "-What are you thinking about?

-Come with me.

-Wait! What is there that _you _are not telling me?

\- You know, the thing Clarke gave Octavia for me when you brought her back? That was a flashdrive." Realizing that Lexa had no idea what that was, he extended his answer. "-That's an object that contains information you can see on a computer… A computer is a machine, we have some here. That means she had access to the computers of the Overseas Men and managed to steal information, files. There is an extended list of targets in those files, location of human farms controlled by the Overseas Men, and a list of what we think are poisons. See my point?"

Without waiting for an answer, he stormed out, immediately followed by Lexa and Galton, and crossed half the camp to re-enter a crumbled part of the Arch. It wasn't exactly careful to show themselves together to anyone around, but he didn't seem to give it a thought, and Lexa didn't either. If there was something in those files that could help Clarke, she was ready to deal with the politic aftermath later.

He brought them in a little room full of young Skyers. There was Monty and Raven, as well as Octavia, and she spotted Keagan, Leal and Sander trying to discreetly guard the room from hiding spots in the hallways. Bellamy gestured Leal to join them before they entered the room. Inside, Monty was focused on the screen in front of him, his fingers hitting the keyboard almost faster than the computer could process, but he turned to them, as did Raven and Octavia.

"-Bellamy, what are you doing? That is not what we talked about."

Bellamy ignored his sister.

"-Monty, go back to the file with all the formulas, the ones Leal thought they were poisons.

-I can't, I'm this close to crack this one open!

-Do it! Clarke's life might depend of what's in it!

-What?" Both Octavia and Raven turned to him, as Monty's eyes widened, and he shut down his work to reopen the formulas file immediately.

"-What do you mean, Clarke's life?" Octavia spat. "-What are you talking about?

-What do you know? How could you not tell us whatever you're hiding?" Raven hissed at Lexa. Before she could answer, Bellamy brought Leal right next to the screen.

"-Clarke's been injected with poison by the Overseas Men. Lexa, is there any other symptoms than the fever?

-She has been unconscious since I found her, except for when she talked to Octavia. Maybe she felt others when she was still conscious.

-Hasn't she said anything… Hum, weird?" Galton intervened.

-Weird how? Why do you ask?" Bellamy asked.

"-As I said to the Council, we saw the ex-Chancellor, there, and he didn't seem like himself. I'm just thinking, Leal said all the components of the poison had effects on human brain. He did seem like his brain had been messed with.

-Oh, stop there!" Octavia protested. "-You think the Overseas Men are trying to mess with Clarke's brain?"

-Or to make her obedient to that woman over there," Bellamy said. "-Raven, you thought that's how she controlled the people in the human farms.

-What, you think that bitch is brainwashing Clarke?

-That makes sense! Look, all the people on her list were leaders, formally or not. If she didn't captured them to kill them, wouldn't it be smart to turn them all? To make them come back to their people ready to preach those city of lights nonsense, so they could convince everybody to follow the Overseas woman's orders? Maybe that's even how she got people in her farms in the first place!

-Leal, is there anything in this list that could have that kind of effect? Something that human body would reject strongly enough to make fever rise way higher than it would against any normal infection?

-Look, Bellamy, I'm sorry but I have no idea. Those components are not even supposed to be synthesizable, in practice…

-Well, obviously they are!" Raven shouted at her. "-They are and they work! So you're gonna do like everyone here, forget you have no idea of what you're doing, and do what it takes for us to survive! If you don't know, find out!

-She's right, Leal." Bellamy said. "-Most of the scientists are gone for the Wastelands, and by this time they should already triggered a signal to tell the Council things are going according to plans. They didn't, not even to say otherwise, so we might as well cross them out of the equation. We can go to other apprentices in science and medicine, but that's all we've got. We need to figure this out by ourselves, before it's too late.

-The Commander should see this, too," Monty said, quickly showing Lexa the new pictures on the list, before going back to the formulas file for Leal.

"-Do you know who they are?

-Yes. Luna, the Queen of the Boat People, in the east, her sister and their lieutenants.

-So they know we are considering alliance with the Boat people," Bellamy stated.

-Or they already planned to take them down as well. Maybe the Overseas Men who attacked us just did not know the entire plan.

-Or they have an informant here. A self-admitted informant who assisted to the Council sessions before leaving with no surveillance.

-Wolf is not leaving, she needs her horse and it is back here. If Clarke stole those pictures when she was on the Overseas Men island, that means the Boat People were already targeted before Wolf or I even got to your camp. And you are not allowed to question my people, Octavia.

-She's not one of your…

-Enough! Bellamy, you were right. The Council is no appropriate government for war, nor will it be for long-term peace. Leal, you have to find what the Overseas Men injected Clarke and find a cure. If all of you hope to be in charge again, you cannot afford to lose her. Neither can I. My people learned to respect her, and that will be needed to forge a true alliance between your people and mine."

…

The River Clan's army had arrived first of all to Camp Jaha, right before sundown. Lexa had to leave the camp with Maykl to meet with their leader, a young man named Auri. When she got there, she was joined by Wolf, who, as she thought, had come back with the soldiers to get her horse back, and had made it to the River Clan when they had arrived in sight of Camp Jaha.

Lexa already knew Auri, but he was only the second of the chief when she met him. She saw their previous leader on the Overseas Men list, crossed in red, and she told him about it when she exposed the situation, and what they had learn about their enemies.

The messengers she send had not only called the Clans to arms, they also spread the story of how the Sky People, led by their princess, had wiped the Moutain Men out, and as she talked to Auri, Lexa realized it had more implications than she first thought. First of all, the alliance might be accepted by her people more easily than she thought. Auri made her understand this as he told her that, since the River Clan was the one that had suffered the most from the Reapers and the Mountain Men, after the Wood Clan, and that himself had lost two sisters before the Sky people decide to march against Mount Weather, he considered his people had a debt to the Sky people and mostly to the Sky Princess who killed all the Mountain Men. Then there was the way Auri and his second, as well as all the warriors Maykl and her met, talked about Clarke. To them, she wasn't just the leader of a strange clan; her overwhelming victory on the Mountain Men had proven she was a powerful warrior, worthy to be feared, respected, admired. Even though she wasn't one of them, to the grounders that heard about that, Clarke had truly become the Sky Princess, the fierce leader of a strong clan. If the occasion presented itself, fight by her side would be a great honor for any warrior.

Lexa knew this was a really good thing, for it would make the alliance easier to forge, and Clarke's position among the Sky People stronger, but she wondered how the girl would feel about that, if she knew about it. Obviously, she didn't consider the massacre of the Mountain Men as a victory, and being honored for it might not ease the pain it caused her. Maybe it would help her see how much good she did by eliminating them, though. Is she ever had the chance to find out, that was. Lexa couldn't help her mind to fly to Camp Jaha, even when she was talking to Auri. The night had fallen while she was in Auri's tent, and with every second her fear grew, and she was more and more convinced she was gonna get back to the infirmary only to find that Clarke's fight had ended while she was away. Or that she woke up only to be the servant of the Overseas Men, her mind destroyed by the poison, and she didn't know which of those possibilities was the worst. But she had to stay here long enough to make sure of Auri's loyalty, to organize the next days. She selected few of his warriors to get back to Camp Jaha with her, since she had to send away as messengers most of the warriors that came with her from Polis, and requisitioned horses as well, for the messengers the Council would send to Luna and Allander.

As she left Auri's tent and ordered the chosen warriors to bring the horses and follow her, she thought she needed to talk to Bellamy as soon as she would be in the camp. It was nightime, and the Council would not send the messengers right away –they should have, but their habit of delaying that kind of decisions was precisely why Bellamy and the others wouldn't let them in charge- but they would soon anyway, probably the next day or the one right after. If those messengers were to leave, they needed to do it on behalf of Clarke, Bellamy, and their friends, not following the orders of the new Council. That meant that they had to replace the Council the next day, with or without Clarke. And Lexa was not certain they could do it without her. The Council had once bent the knee before her, and many of the Sky People already thought of her as their leader, but would they feel the same about Bellamy? Would Kane and Abby let him take the place as they left Clarke? Nothing was less certain.

She left the warriors outside the Arch under Maykl's orders as she headed for the room where the group had installed the computer, Wolf by her side. Sander and Keagan were still guarding, and none of them was more discreet than before, Sander even less than the girl. Bellamy opened the door for her as soon as she called him, and she thought he had been right behind the door, in case of anything happened.

"-What is it? Is there anything changed with Clarke?

-No, but we need to talk."

He stepped aside to let them enter. The room was crowded, for a bunch of other teenagers had joined them and installed a large table, which was covered by sheets of paper. On all of them were written formulas, notes, and calculations.

"-They're the med and scientists apprentices," Bellamy explained. "-They're working on the poisons. Monty had few files opened, but nothing that can help us for that. There are detailed plans of the farms, though. Dreadfully protected, and rigorously organized by category of people.

-Are they figuring anything out? Do they know more about the poisons?

-Leal, Zeke," He called. The two kids left what they were doing to the others as Bellamy and Lexa joined them. "-Tell her what you found."

Zeke, a redhead boy with freckles all over his face who didn't look like he could be more that fifteen years old, was the first one to talk.

"-Ok, so, everything is really theoretical, we don't know for sure if…

-We got that, Zeke. Just tell them what you think and we'll keep in mind that nothing is certain.

-Right. Well, hum, first of all, all the poisons are indeed meant to brainwash people, or at least mess their minds up, but each of them is different. Like, this one," Leal handed him several papers which all had a different formula written on, and a bunch on notes underneath each of them. He took one of them without hesitation. "-practically leaves people braindead, I mean their vital functions would still be there, but, hum, personality, memories, those kind of things, gone. They wouldn't be able to do anything else than what the Overseas Men, or rather their leader, would order them to. Hum, this one is lighter, but still suppress every will or initiative, anything that she doesn't need to make them obey. We don't think that one of those is the one Clarke has been injected with, because, well, that would not be that useful to the Overseas woman, she has hundreds of people she can do that to, while Clarke was on her blacklist, so special in some way, just like the ancient Chancellor. So, what we think is that she's been infected with the same poison than Thelonius Jaha, and we think it's this one. It's the one that match the best the description Galton gave us from Jaha, and Clarke's symptoms as well. Hum, we believe the fever is a reaction against the components of the poison, and that it's also needed for the poison to make the wanted effect. See, at a certain temperature, fever can damage brain cells, which we believe help the poison to make his effect on the subject's brain. To say it in a schematic way, it destroys connections in the brain so it can replace it by its own. And, hum, we think it creates some kind of canal that's used by the Overseas woman to, hum, transmit whatever she wants while the brain is being, hum, rearranged, like all that Jaha was saying about the City of Lights and everything. With the other poisons, this transmission would take over, which is why the subjects wouldn't be anything else than puppets, but that is, hum, a light version, I would say. It is designed to let the subjects enough autonomy to look like they're still themselves. I mean, that's what we think, but again, we could be…We don't know if any of this could be really done. It's like, way ahead of anything we know how to do, and if we're right, that means the Overseas Men are hugely advanced in sciences. Then again, they have teleporting rooms, so…" He gradually stopped talking, to let them process it all.

"-We have few ideas," Leal said when he went quiet. "-To sum it up, synthetize molecules that would counter the components of the poison would be ideal, if Clarke's brain isn't already damaged. Even if it is, it might not be definitive, if we stop the poison's action before the Overseas woman takes over. The thing is, we have no way to get half of the molecules we need. Even with the equipment we can steal, or use discreetly, there are components that are just out of our reach, scientifically, and we don't have the knowledge or the time to try to create them and make them stable.

-I am not sure what the words molecules or synthetize mean, but what you are saying is that you cannot make an antidote?"

Lexa forced herself to ask, even though she did not want an answer to that. She _had _to know, for everything they would do next depended on it, but she didn't want to. The girl was going to tell her there was nothing to do, and all that she wanted was for time to stop, so she wouldn't have to hear it, to go back to Clarke and watch her wake up as someone else, to watch her destroyed.

"-Actually… We can't make the ideal antidote. But we thought it over, and we might be able to cook an approximation. That is, by using similar molecules –components- that should have the same kind of effect. But that would be super hazardous, the only reason we're even considering it is that… That's really the only option, as bad as it is. If we don't do anything, she could not even survive the poison, and if she does, she'll be… You know. So we worked on it anyway, and we have… We made up a formula that could act as an antidote. Theoretically. I mean, with a little time, 'cause right now it would probably kill her on its own, so we need to work on it and lessen some of the possible effects and add some…

-How long will that take?

-We can't rush it, Commander," Bellamy told her. "-We can't give Clarke something that would risk her life.

-We may have to. We do not know how long she has before the effects of the poison become definitive. And we need her as soon as possible.

-Yeah, but not that soon. If it takes time…

-If it takes time, your Council will send messengers to the Boat People and to the South Lands, and they will be the ones those nations will see as your leaders.

-They don't have horses to send those messengers, and they wouldn't do that before a Council meeting anyway.

-They do now. The River Clan arrived, and horses with them. I believe the meeting will take place very soon. Your leaders might not be the most reactive, but they will act eventually.

-Is this what we needed to talk about?

-Yes. It is important that Allander and Luna have no doubts about who is in charge. Otherwise, your clan will appear unstable, and that means weak.

-Shit. Leal, could it be ready in the next days?

-Let us a minute to talk about this."

Bellamy nodded, and the two teenagers went back to the table to explain the new parameters to their co-workers, as Octavia let Monty's side to join him and Lexa.

"-I'm just coming back from the Council room. They still haven't heard from the scientific team. They're not very optimistic.

-Then we still know nothing of their attempt to stop the Wastelands before they devour everything around," Lexa stated. "-Someone will have to take over their work and make another try, but this time they will not be sent alone.

-Even with a part of your army as escort, who could we send? Most of our scientists are in this room!" Bellamy froze when he realized she already knew that. "-We can't send them there after completely losing track of the previous expedition!

-We can and we will, if the team does not come back or make contact in the next two days. You have not seen the Wastelands. The lands will die and the people with it if nothing is done.

-Ok, so, we talked this through," Leal said as she was coming back to them, having heard nothing of the exchange. "-And we think we can cook a viable version of the formula tonight. But, as I said, we have no certainty about the results. Anyway, we're gonna need someone to get few things out of the infirmary, and do you have an available healer? We could use one.

-Wolf will get the healer of the River clan. As for what you need in the infirmary, Abby will not pay attention and I can get Jackson distracted while you get it.

The teenagers immediately started working on their formula, as Bellamy turned to Lexa.

-OK. Hum, why is Wolf still here, by the way? Weren't you supposed to leave for the South Lands? Now that we have horses?

-Well, that might sound really insensitive, but between that flashdrive and your friend Clarke, there are a lot of information that will surely prove useful. I'm not gonna do the trip fifty times, so I'd rather know as much as I can before leaving.

-You and I might need to have a private discussion before you leave with all the information we have.

-Sure. Would be my pleasure.

-Good. Anything else I need to know?" Bellamy asked to Lexa.

-That Jasper you talked about, why is he not here if he is close to all of you?

-He was… He was involved with Maya, a girl from Mount Weather. She helped us, a lot. He didn't… I don't think he will forgive us for what we did. He didn't even talked with Monty since, and they were best friends.

-You need to make sure he will not be a problem to any of you, then. You cannot have him contesting you when you take charge. You cannot have him contesting _Clarke_.

-How…

-I'll try talking to him," Octavia said. "-He's OK with me."

-Fine. Nothing else?

-Not for now. I will let you know if anything happens.

-Same here."

…

The night had fallen on the camp few hours ago, and Lexa had been by Clarke's side since she came back from the computer room. Her state hadn't change for hours, except for the fever that was slowly rising. The kids Bellamy sent pretended that one of them accidentally hurt himself so Jackson would take care of him, and when he asked one of them to bring him medication, Lexa saw the kid make his way to the medical furniture. They left shortly after, without Jackson or Abby noticing anything.

Few hours after the sun went down, Clarke started to dream –at least that was what they thought, because behind her eyelids, her eyes were moving- and after a while, she started to talk. It had only been moaning, at first, no real words, and Abby practically jumped from her chair when she heard it. Lexa was already watching her carefully since she started dreaming, so she had been less surprised, but she got closer anyway, hoping to catch anything she might say. She feared it would be the same kind of things Galton had talked about, nonsenses that would prove she was already under control. Abby called her daughter, started to talk to her, without any results. As she was about to sat down on her chair, Clarke called a name, Wells, in a voice that didn't look like hers. Lexa didn't know who Wells was, but the sound of it made Abby burst into tears and she took her daughter's hand into one of hers, caressing her face with the other.

-I'm so sorry, Baby, he can't be here. But I know he's thinking about you, because he loves you so much. So do I. He and I love you so much."

She kept talking to her, and Lexa knew she hoped Clarke would keep talking, proving she was still there, still with them.

"-Who is Wells?" She finally asked, few minutes later, as Clarke hadn't say anything else.

-The ex-Chancellor's son. He and Clarke were practically raised together. He's been killed on the Ground before you arrived."

Lexa chased away the unexpected pain that Abby's explanation caused her. She had briefly imagined a little Clarke playing around with a dark-skinned little boy, and it reminded her, with a violence it hadn't had for years, of Costia and her as kids.

Abby checked once again Clarke's temperature, and even though they both knew what it was gonna show, she still had a move of anger, of desperation when the result appeared. That was when Clarke, with the small voice of a scared child, had called her father. Abby started crying even harder and Lexa thought that she knew that sound. She knew it well. It was the sound of a heart breaking, shattering in millions of pieces. Clarke called again and Abby suddenly got up, before storming out of the infirmary, leaving the Commander and the Sky Princess behind her.

…...

"-Abby, what are you doing here? Why aren't you with Clarke? She's alone with the Commander.

-Eight years.

-What?

-Eight years. That's how much time I spent in Medtraining. Eight years of my life I spent only studying and training. You know how hard it is, how you have to dedicate your entire life to it to become a complete doctor, able to treat anything known. Eight years of doing only this, just so I could end up watching my daughter die without being able to do anything about it. I can't be in there, Jackson. I can't be there when she dies. I watched her father die, I can't watch _her _die.

-Don't speak like that. She's just like you, so strong…

-Will you stop with that? That's all I hear about her, so strong, helping everyone to survive, stopping an army to wipe us out, making peace with those savages, winning wars, always so strong! Tell me what it changes, right now, that she's strong! Tell me what it changes about scientific facts, like human body failing when it hits a certain temperature, or tachycardia being lethal when it doesn't stop! Tell me what good it will make, that she's so strong, when her heart stops beating! Because that is what is happening, and she's not even that strong! She tried to be for everyone, and it broke her! And that's all there is, my little girl broken and dying and there's nothing I can do about it. And I can't go in. If I'm there when it happens, I'll never be able to think of anything else about her. I'll never be able to remember her any other way than dying and that will be all I'll have of her. I wanna be able to remember her before the Ground broke her. I wanna remember the way she used to smile and laugh. I want to remember the times when I could protect her."

Lexa, from the inside of the infirmary, heard only Abby's yell, as everyone else in the room, probably, and thought she was wrong. Clarke _was _that strong, and it mattered. It was because she was strong that she made it to the dropship where Lexa found her, and it was because she was strong that she was still fighting against what was happening to her.

Jackson entered a short time after that, going straight to her.

"-Any changes?

-Fever worsened. And she stopped talking.

-She'll be all right."

Lexa gave him a look, not sure if he really was that naive or merely trying to comfort her and sucking at it. When he left to take care of other patients, and that Abby didn't come back, she understood it was just Clarke and her, now. She had kept changing the water and the towels all day, even if it wasn't stopping the fever, mostly because it was the only thing she could do, and she did it once again, thinking of this bunch of teenagers, in the computer room, who were Clarke's only hope. Abby really didn't come back, and almost an hour after she left, Lexa was still alone with Clarke. She didn't need all the machines Jackson had set up to hear her breathing change, become faster, nor did she need it to understand what was going on. The Sky Princess was losing her fight. Lexa impulsively took her hand in hers. She knew there was nothing she could do, but she wouldn't let go of her.

"-Clarke," She said, as tears started to blind her. "-Clarke, listen to me. I know you are fighting, and I know this is hard, that it would be less painful to let go, but you have to hold on. Just a little longer. Your people are trying to save you, because they need and love you. They are all waiting for…" She stopped, blinking the tears away, because even if they were true, those were not the words she wanted to say to Clarke. Those were good for the Sky leader, but it was _Clarke_ she was trying to reach.

"-Clarke, _please_, keep fighting. I am right here, by your side, and I am not leaving you. Not this time. Please, be stronger than I was. Don't be the one to walk away. Stay here. Stay with me, and I will stay with you. I will stay with you.

…

Bellamy barged in the infirmary, along with Octavia, Raven, Leal, Zeke and few others kids from the med team they put together. Behind him, was Abby, ordering them all to get the hell out of here, and Jackson arrived too, alerted by the noise. Lexa raised her head to Bellamy, without letting go of Clarke's hand.

"-Is it ready?

-They think so." Lexa saw that Leal was carefully holding a little container. It was three-quarters full with a translucent liquid. Zeke was already going for a syringe and the equipment do clean it properly, but Abby ripped it from his hands.

"-What is this? What do you all think you're doing?"

Bellamy had to go with a short explanation of what they had been doing, from the flashdrive to the creation of an antidote, but none of it calmed Abby down. Instead, she started by asking why they hadn't told any of this to the Council, and when she realized how experimental their antidote was, refused to let them use it.

"-Abby," Jackson gently said. "-It sounds bad, it's true, but if they're right about the alternative…

-They don't know what they're doing! All of you, I know you think you know better than us, but you're just kids. It's not up to you to handle those things and to take that kind of decisions. Go away, and give this flashdrive to the Council, now!

-Here we go again," Octavia said bitterly, before Raven tried to make Abby listen to them. As she stayed on her positions, Lexa just stood up and caught her arm, twisting it so she wouldn't be able to escape her grip.

"-Lexa!" Bellamy protested.

"-She is not going to let us do this. And if I let her go, she will stop us here or run to Kane and make him stop us. There has to be sleep medication, here.

-We're not sedating her!

-Why? Would that not make things easier when you discharge the Council?

-Could you not say that in front of a Council person?

-Well, now we definitively need to sedate her," Octavia said. "-I suppose that's what you were going for?

"-What do you think you're doing? You can't take on the Council! And you certainly can't inject that thing to my daughter! Let me go!

-Oh, Jeez. All right, sedate her. Jackson, what about you? We don't want any more troubles, OK? We're just trying to save our friend. And our people.

-Are you really planning to attack the Council?

-No! Of course not! We're gonna be in charge again, but we're not attacking anyone! Look, this is war, and we need warriors to be in charge, not Councilmen. But no one is going to attack anyone. Please, don't make this difficult. We're just gonna give Abby a sedative, you can watch after her when it's done, and we'll handle Clarke.

They had to silence Abby while Zeke injected her, but the sedative acted really fast, and less than a minute later, she was sleeping further away in the infirmary, a stunned-looking Jackson by her side. He kept watching them anxiously, but didn't try anything to stop them. Luckily, when Lexa first arrived with Clarke, they had put her in a place of the infirmary that was half-separated from the rest of the room, which made difficult for the others patients to hear what was going on. It had just been in order to not make people panic until they knew what was wrong with Clarke, but now, it was the reason no one in the infirmary realized what was happening.

Zeke prepared the injection, as another kid cleaned and disinfected Clarke's arm. Jackson finally proposed to do the injection himself, being the most experimented, and the teenagers stepped away, for the space around the bed was getting really crowded. Raven and Octavia stayed close enough, though, and Bellamy didn't move, standing next to the bed. Nor did Lexa, who sat back at her place, the closest from Clarke.

As he turned Clarke's arm to get the needle in position, Jackson gave a look at Bellamy. "-Are you sure about this?"

Lexa saw Bellamy's face filling with fear as he turned to her.

"-What choice do we have?" She asked, trying not to let her own anguish show.

"-It could kill her.

-Do you think she would rather be controlled by the Overseas woman, or die trying to fight this?"

He took a deep breath, and she could see he was still looking for other possibilities, as if he hadn't been thinking about it all night and found nothing.

"-One way or another, it's supposed to act really fast," Zeke said, from behind them. Bellamy grabbed Clarke's hand.

"-Don't worry, Clarke. We've got you. You're gonna be fine." He turned back to Jackson, his resolution written on his face. "-Do it".

For an entire minute after Jackson gave Clarke the shot, the only thing Lexa could still feel was the thudding of her own heart in her chest, the way it seemed to be the only thing in her body, a heart beating in a hollow cavity, and the blood rushing to her head. Nothing changed during that time, and none of them spoke a word.

Then, Clarke's body suddenly arched before she fell back on the bed. Lexa reacted faster than Bellamy, and by the time Clarke convulsed again, she was holding her tight in her arms, preventing her from hurting herself. She heard a muffled cry coming from one of the Skyers, as Clarke opened her eyes. Her pupils were dilated, her irises almost invisibles, and she didn't seem to even see Lexa or Bellamy. Her bare skin was burning more than ever against Lexa's and she arched again, so violently Lexa almost let go of her. Almost. But she held on, she held on when Clarke started to cry of pain, and when she started screaming as her body was shaken with convulsions. She held on to the girl in her arms, as Bellamy talked to her, saying she was gonna be all right and others things like that. Clarke wasn't hearing anything, and Lexa was hearing only Clarke's voice, and when Bellamy stopped talking, that was all there was, Lexa not letting go of Clarke, holding on because that physical contact was the only way she had to reach the girl, to make her aware of her presence. To keep her here, and alive.

The convulsions stopped as suddenly as they began, and Clarke didn't move anymore, stayed laying in Lexa's arms.

"-Is she breathing?" Bellamy asked, completely panicked. Behind him, all the other Skyers were asking as well if she was alive.

Lexa didn't answer. For few seconds she couldn't feel Clarke's breathing, nor her heartbeat. Then, as Bellamy asked her again, Clarke jerked in her arms, and started breathing again. The shadow of a smile appeared on Lexa's face as she finally felt Clarke's heartbeat, steady, regular. Bellamy's face lightened when he saw her expression and he largely smiled to all the other Skyers. The one who worked on the antidote cried for victory out loud, triumphants, and even if Octavia and Raven weren't that expressive, it was easy to see how relieved they were.

"-I'll go tell Monty," Octavia said. "He was worried sick.

-I'm gonna check on her," Jackson intervened. "-We don't know what just happened until she wakes up. We have no certainty it worked.

-He's right," Zeke continued, getting out of a victory hug to join them. "-By the result, I'm pretty sure it worked, but checking can't hurt.

-Commander, I'm gonna need you to let go of her. She's not in immediate danger anymore."

Lexa acquiesced, but had a hard time actually letting go. Even after she did, she stayed so close she could still feel the heat of Clarke's skin. Jackson seemed to take forever to let them know about his results.

"-That actually looks good," He finally said. "-I mean, it looks terrible, but compared to where she was ten minutes ago, it looks good. Her vitals are way better, her fever's still way too high, but it lowered for the first time since she got here. I don't know what you put in that syringe, but you might wanna keep the recipe."

The next few minutes were kind of confused, for there was still a bunch of overexcited teenagers congratulating themselves in the room, but they eventually left along with Octavia, leaving only Bellamy, Raven and Lexa behind.

"-You're staying, I guess?" Bellamy asked to the Commander, who nodded. "-I thought so. We have until the next Council meeting to act, so we should just let her rest until it's announced. I'm gonna check on Jasper and warn those who will support us. Is it a problem if we keep Auri's healer with us until it's we take power back? He knows what we've been doing, and I'd rather not have him spreading the story to his entire clan. You'll let us know if anything happens here?

-Keep him as long as you need. Of course, I will send for you.

-Thanks." He smiled to her as he left, and though she knew it was partly because he was so relieved, it made her think that she let him get too close. Because he cared for Clarke too, because they found each other in a similar situation, both wandering in the night unable to find peace, because it had been comforting to the both of them to get friendly, she let him get too close. And the same applied to Raven, who was still standing next to her. Who was looking at her in a way Lexa couldn't figure out.

"-You do... You really care, don't you?" The Sky girl asked. Lying wasn't really an option, since she already knew the answer.

"-Yes.

-I really wish I could hate you, you know. It would make things so much easier. But you're… You're just like us. Trying to survive and to make sure your people do too. Right?" Lexa stayed silent. There wasn't really anything to say, and Raven didn't really asked a question. It was more of a statement. "-Well. I hope we all survive this, you included."

After they all left, and as the night went on, Clarke's temperature got lower with every hour passing, and about two hours before dawn, it was almost back to normal and Lexa had covered her with a thick blanket. The nights were starting to get cold, after all. As she stayed sitting next to the bed, she finally started to feel the weight of the sleepless nights she just spent, and she shook it off immediately. She would not fell asleep before Clarke was awake, and by this time, it would probably be morning already. Then, they would have to replace a government, so the day would be busy. She'd sleep another time. Despite this, she was starting to drowse, absentmindedly listening to the noises of the other people in the infirmary and to Clarke's breathing, when she heard her stir. It immediately took her out of her half-sleep, and she sat up straight on her chair, in time to see Clarke open her eyes. Back to normal and normal-sized blue irises.

"-Clarke?" Her voice was shaking so much it barely sounded like hers. Clarke blinked twice, looking confused, and Lexa called her name again in a clearer voice. This time, Clarke seemed to hear it and turned her head to her, looked at her.

"-L…Lexa?"


	16. Chapter 16

"-L…Lexa?"

She looked all around her, like she couldn't figure out where she was, despite the recognizable look of the Arch.

"-You're safe, Clarke. You're in Camp Jaha. This is the infirmary."

"-What…" She looked at Lexa again. "-Are you… How… Why are you here?

-This can wait. Here, you need to hydrate. You still have a fever." She poured a glass of water and placed an arm behind Clarke's back, to help her in a half-sitting position. She thought the Sky girl might reject her help, but instead, she practically clung to the glass, drinking so fast she almost choked on it. Lexa could feel her heart accelerate as she caught her breath and asked for more. When she finished drinking, she closed her eyes and Lexa thought that she fell back asleep, but she immediately reopened them and tried to sit without leaning on the other girl. She stood on her own for a second, but had to let Lexa help her and lay her back on the bed.

-You have to rest, Clarke.

-No, you don't understand, I need to talk to Bellamy and the others! Everyone's in danger." She tried again to stand, but Lexa saw it coming and blocked her on the bed. It wasn't really hard, since Clarke was barely able to fight back.

-We know. The prisoners you helped escape are here as well. They told us about the Overseas Men and the woman who lead them. This is why I am here. Your people and mine will be fighting together.

-They… They made it? What about the… There's something I need to give to…

-You did, Clarke. You gave the flashdrive to Octavia when we arrived here." It only seemed to confuse Clarke even more.

"-I don't…" She looked at Lexa once more. "-You were at the dropship." Lexa acquiesced, starting to be worried by Clarke's reactions. She looked like herself, but it seemed like she couldn't focus on one thing at a time. She hoped it was just confusion caused by the fever, or by the long time of unconsciousness. "-I don't understand how you're here.

-All of this can wait until morning. Your people will explain everything, but in the meantime, you really need to rest. You have been through a lot."

Clarke suddenly put her hand on her neck, where the poison had been injected, like she just remembered, and she looked like she was about to cry.

-Are you in pain?" Lexa asked.

"-No," She answered, and there was something broken in her voice. Then, in a precipitated murmur: "-I wish I was. I should be. I deserve…

-Clarke, don't. This is not true, and you had your share of pain.

-I can't meet the others, Lexa," She said in a desperate whisper. "-I can't stand in front of them after… How do you do it? How do you face…

-Come with me." She helped a clueless Clarke to sit up, and wrapped her in the blanket before making her stand up, supporting her so she wouldn't fall. There was only few steps to take to get to the other part of the infirmary, but she could tell it was a real effort for Clarke anyway.

"-Can you see those people, the couple in the left side?"

Clarke nodded. They were a middle-age couple, the woman asleep on an infirmary bed, and the man, sleeping as well, on a portable cot next to her. Lexa heard them when they got here sooner the same day.

-Their son was one of your friends trapped in the Mountain. Do you know what they would tell you, if you were to wake them up and stand in front of _them_? They would thank you. Because what you did is the only reason their family it here, safe, and happy. They know exactly what you did, and they are grateful for it. They love you for it.

-That's because they…

-That is because you saved their son's life. Because you saved your people. You may think the worst of you, but to your people, you are not a murderer. You are a savior. I know this is a great weight to carry, Clarke, and I learnt that no one is strong enough to carry it alone. So _this _is how I do it. I see my people, and I know they would not be alive without all I did, they know it too, and they love me, as their leader, for that. And the weight of the dead does not crush me, because the living make it lighter. You can have this too, Clarke. Leaders give everything to their people, but the people give back a lot, in some ways."

Clarke stayed silent until Lexa walked her back to her bed, then once she was lying again, spoke with a tired voice.

"-You said love was weakness. How is it now a good thing?

\- I am talking about the love a people has for its leader, something even above loyalty, something you would never get from fear. That kind of love is a leader's greatest strength. What you are talking about is personal attachment, for other persons, for individuals. That is weakness, because it makes you vulnerable, it makes you suffer or choose with your heart and not your head.

-And we can't have that."

At first, Lexa thought that was an attack, Clarke's anger toward her finally showing, but the look the Sky Princess gave her made her think otherwise. There was no hate in this look. No anger. There was nothing. She was only stating something. Her eyes were locked into Lexa's for the first time in weeks, in a way that was familiar to them both.

"-_We_ can't have that," she said again.

Lexa broke the eye contact before Clarke could see her tears threatening to flow. Of course, she was right –neither of them could have that. It already made them suffer both, for nothing. She knew Clarke was right. But she didn't want to hear it. She thought human heart was a fragile thing, for it was so easily broken, but right now she saw how powerful it was. How easily it could command someone. How meaningless it made everything look, compared to its desires. She was the Heda, and entire clans depended on her strength. Yet, she wanted to be weak, if that was what loving Clarke meant.

But the Sky Princess was trying to be strong, to be what her people needed, what she would need to be as soon as the sun would rise. Lexa didn't have the right to weaken her, and if this was the way Clarke chose to achieve that –the way Lexa herself taught her- then she would not make it even harder for her. She had hurt her enough already.

There was a silence that Lexa was the first one to break.

"-Do you want me to leave?"

Clarke's answer was so low that Lexa couldn't tell if she wanted to be heard.

"-No."

…

Clarke woke up at first light, when the rays of the sun came enlightening the infirmary. The brief time she had been awake, two hours ago, seemed like a dream. Her mind was clear, and even though she didn't exactly feel great, she knew she would be able to get up, and to stay standing on her own. Which didn't mean she wasn't terrified by the idea of seeing everyone for the first time since Mount Weather.

Lexa was still next to her, and in daylight, Clarke noticed how tired she seemed, noticed the dark circles under her eyes, and the absence of weapon. She realized that she had no idea how much time passed since Lexa found her at the dropship. And also that her mother was nowhere to be seen, which was weird.

"-Do you feel better? You look better.

-Yeah." She took the blanket off and sat down on the bed, finally realizing that she was wearing only underwear. She didn't even notice, when she first woke up.

"-Jackson wants to check on you before you get up," Lexa said, "-And Octavia brought you clothes. She left it in the bathroom.

"-Do you know where my mother is? I kind of expected her here."

She didn't know Lexa well enough to read every one of her expressions, but she could have swear there was something that she wouldn't like in her answer. It was confirmed when Lexa talked again.

"-She is here, but under sedation. She is fine, don't worry.

-Is she hurt?

-No. Clarke, we will explain everything to you.

-What? Who's we?"

Jackson arrived at this moment, avoiding to Lexa the series of questions Clarke was about to ask. He seemed stunned to find that she was all right, especially when he checked her temperature, and she wondered how bad she had been. It must have looked quite catastrophic, if he was so impressed now, when she was still feeling like she could sleep an entire week.

"-No pain? Any unusual sensation?

-No."

After verifying that she was physically alright, he asked her a bunch of simple questions, and looked even more surprised to see she had no troubles answering it. His amazement started to worry her.

"-Of course, I know which day Unity Day is celebrated! Why shouldn't I remember those things?

-I'm sorry, but I have to look for anything that could indicate brain damages, or alteration of your...

-It's the… You found out what I've been injected with? Do you know what it was?

-I personally have no idea, but your friends seem to think it was some kind of brainwashing thing, and since whatever they cooked to stop its effects seems to have worked, I suppose they were right.

-They…" She gave a confused look at Lexa. "-I suppose that's part of what you'll explain to me?

-That is not complicated to explain. There was formulas on the flashdrive you brought back, and the medicine and scientific students used them to find an antidote.

_So there was an antidote. If I had managed to bring Jaha back… _The memory of her escape struck her all of the sudden, Jaha's face exploding in a fountain of blood, Derna's burned corpse, the holes in Jak's chest.

"-Clarke?" Jackson was too close to her, and even if he only meant to help, she couldn't stand his concerns. She jerked back on the bed, pushing him away. He immediately tried to get to her again, but Lexa grabbed his arm and made him step back, to let her space.

"-Sorry. I'm fine," She said after taking a deep inspiration, trying to calm herself down. All she wanted was to bury her face in the pillow and scream until her throat bleeds, but she spoke in a calm voice. She went through the rest of the check-up in a sort of haze, struggling to process. Trying to cope with the idea she could have ended up just like Jaha, rambling about Alie and the City of Lights. That he probably had been through the same sickness as she did, except no one was here to help him, and the first familiar person he saw after that shot him. And she was gonna have to explain everything that happened there to the others. When Jackson decided he had seen enough, she immediately rushed to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her before locking it.

She didn't even bother taking her underwear off before entering the shower. The water was cold, but she didn't mind. Curled up on the ground, she let it flow on her body, washing her tears away along with everything else. It wasn't long before she started shivering, then shaking, but she stayed in the corner of the shower, her throat hurting from the sobs. She didn't really know what she was breaking down about, because there was so much things that made her just wanna stay in here forever, locked away from the rest of the world, under this freezing fall of water that stopped her to think.

She didn't hear Jackson calling her through the door after she had been in the bathroom for a while, nor Lexa's voice. She didn't hear the key turned in the lock, and she didn't saw Lexa until the girl was next to the shower, looking at her.

"-Clarke, get out of there."

Clarke didn't move. Lexa's tone made her feel like a stubborn child, but she couldn't find enough strength to go face the world. Not even enough to just move from where she was.

"-Clarke, really. This water is freezing, and you had a fever all day and night. This is not good for you."

Clarke's only answer was a sob. Lexa stood in front of her for few seconds, then, when she saw that it was all she was gonna get, banged the shower door open and stepped in to shut the water, quickly enough to not end up soaking wet. She went back out only to get a thick towel and kneeled next to Clarke.

"-Go away," Clarke managed to say, between her shivers and tears.

"-No."

Lexa wrapped the towel around her, and ignoring Clarke's vague attempts to make her stay away, closed her arms around her to rub her like she would have done with a kid. Clarke tried to break free from her embrace, but Lexa wouldn't let her, and she didn't try that hard anyway. She soon felt warmer, and Lexa stopped but still didn't let go of her. Instead, she kept her in her arms, talking to her. She couldn't understand what she was saying, for the Commander was speaking in Trigedasleng, but the sound, the rhythm of her voice was soothing, comforting, and soon, she was holding on to Lexa like a drowning person to a buoy.

Her cries finally died along with her shivers, but she stayed immobile against Lexa for another minute before disengaging herself from her arms. This time, Lexa let her, and got back on her feet, before handing her the clothes Octavia left. Clarke followed her outside the shower, wiping out the last tears on her cheeks.

"-I'm sorry. I…

-I know. I know, Clarke."

They gazed at each other, and Clarke thought that she probably really knew. She didn't know herself what she wanted to say, but Lexa had been through the same things before. So, yes, she probably knew better than Clarke herself. Then, the Commander left the bathroom to let her get dressed. Octavia had brought her usual dressing style since they got on Earth, dark boots, jeans, grey shirt and dark-blue leather jacket. It felt weird to be back at her old-self, even just on the outside. Paradoxically, it made her feel even more different from the girl she had been just three months ago. Like she outgrew that person.

When she got out of the bathroom, Lexa was waiting for her (Jackson too, but from far away, like he wasn't sure she wasn't gonna snap on him), and there was food on the closest table, bread and meat. Not really sophisticated, but it made her realize how hungry she was, and she practically devoured it all. And then there was no more reason to delay her release from the infirmary, and her meeting with Bellamy and everyone else.

Her chest tightened with fear, a burning fear spreading in her body when they got out of the infirmary, out in the sun. The morning was cold, but beautiful, with an entirely blue sky. The camp changed more than she thought in the time she was away, it was way more organized than when she left, and there was more definitive structures outside of the Arch. She couldn't tell for sure, but it seemed like the barriers were enclosing a larger territory. She nervously looked around, trying to spot one of her friends. Despite this, she was surprised when someone called her name. She turned around, to see Bellamy coming towards her, a large smile on his face. Before she could do anything, he was hugging her with warmth.

"-Bellamy…

"-I'm so glad you're alright. It's so good to have you back."

She hugged him back, moved by the happiness in his voice. He held her even tighter before letting her go and stepping back to look at her entirely.

"-You look better.

-I've been told. Where is everyone? You're the only one I can see around.

-They're in the room we use to gather ourselves. You should come, there is a lot to talk about.

-Yeah, there is. Is there anyone officially in charge? Who do we go to, to…

-That's… Part of what we need to talk about.

-Who's there?

-Pretty much everyone. Octavia, Monty and Raven, Connor, Miller, plus all the ones we recruited as science team. The real science team left for… It will be simpler to explain it all at once.

-Have you been talking to Lexa? 'Cause she keeps telling me you will explain everything, and in the meantime, I still don't even know how she can be here.

-Yeah, we did talk. Come with me." He then addressed Lexa. "-Wolf's already in the room with everyone. Kane called for a Council meeting in an hour, so we don't have much time." They both looked at Clarke, who suddenly felt kind of left out. Obviously, the two of them were referring to something she knew nothing about.

She readied herself as they were walking with Bellamy to the Arch. Having to meet the others was already a lot to take, but now she had to see them all at once, and the fact that Bellamy seemed so happy to see her wasn't that reassuring. He had made clear he considered himself as responsible as she was, after Mount Weather. It wasn't the case for the others.

Bellamy and Lexa went straight to a part of the Arch that was so wrecked it didn't even seemed like one could walk in it, and it reminded her of the piece of the Arch she found the day the men in white captured her. She tried hard to chase the images away, wondering if it was gonna be like that from now on. Remembering something awful, dead, dying or suffering people, at every corner.

As they progress into the hallway, she heard excited voices that seemed to come from nowhere, and two teenagers appeared from behind debris. She recognized Sander and Keagan, two of the delinquents that had first been sent to Earth.

"-You're supposed to be guarding, not playing around," Bellamy told them, without looking really annoyed.

"-Come on, it doesn't matter anymore, Clarke's finally back! We thought you had been killed when we got that kill list from the Overseas Men, and between that, Galton telling us you were still prisoner and the Commander bringing you back half-dead, you sure gave us a good scare!

-Yeah," Sander approved, "-It's so great that you made it back!"

They looked so sincere, she thought. Like they couldn't _see _what was behind the surface, all the ghosts she brought with her. And they seemed like they were waiting for her. Was it the case for all the others? Why would they be waiting for her? What did they need her for?

Bellamy knocked at the door. "-It's me," he said through it before stepping back and wait for someone inside to open it. They had guards, they had orders not to open the door to anyone. And this door was going to open on all the people she ran away from. She tried to tell herself that in worst case scenario, they would reject her, and it would be quickly over. Couldn't be worse than facing a damn gorilla. She still stayed frozen behind Bellamy, thinking she would never be able to lift her feet and step in the room.

She didn't even had to, because the door opened on Octavia, and the girl saw her immediately. Seemed to see nothing else than her. Clarke opened her mouth to say something, anything that could release the tension from Octavia's look on her, but the other girl was faster than her.

"-You idiot!" Her face and words were all but nice, but Clarke could hear she was more than relieved, and clearly trying to look mad. "-What the hell were you thinking? Ditching me like that and running away on your own, were you trying to get yourself killed or what?

-Octavia!

-No, I've been waiting a month to give her a piece of my mind, she's not getting away that easily!" She turned back to Clarke after shutting her brother up. "-Do you have any idea how much things sucks here without you? Don't ever pull anything like that again! We thought you were dead!

-Octavia, I…

-Oh, shut up. I'm serious, Clarke. You don't get to run away. We need you here"

She didn't have time to go further, for the others in the room heard her and understood who she was talking to. Raven was the first one to come out, and she went straight to Clarke.

"-Hey," She said gently, before giving her the softest hug. "-Clarke. I missed you."

Clarke had to take a deep breath to stop herself from bursting in tears when Raven let go of her. All the others arrived after her, some she recognized from the delinquents group, some she knew from Medtraining back on the Arch, and Galton. At last, Monty got out and squeezed her in his arms even stronger than Bellamy did. All of them were excited to see her, all of them seemed to have been waiting for her. They all surrounded her as if having her among them was the greatest thing ever, almost taking turns to talk to her, to hug her. It was nothing like she expected, from their joy to Octavia's kind of nice talk. Considering how they left things, at least, it seemed like a nice talk. The sight of Lexa, standing a little away from the group, made her wonder if what she said could be right. If there could really be some kind of silver lining to the burden or leadership. The feeling of Bellamy, Monty and Raven's embraces sure felt like it.

When they all of them had time to go welcome her, they finally all entered the room, and took place around the table. Lexa was at one end of it, Bellamy in the other, all the new science team in one side, and Raven, Octavia, Galton, Connor, Miller, Monty on the other. Next to Lexa was standing the only person of the room Clarke didn't know, one of the Grounder she saw on Alie's list of pictures. Before she realized what he was doing, Bellamy stepped away to let her his place at the end of the table, and she understood that was what they all had been waiting for. They were waiting for their leader to come back, and even Bellamy, who told her more than once that he didn't take orders from her, just made what he was expecting clear. Their looks crossed when they switched places, and he imperceptibly nodded to her. None of the people present in the room uttered a protestation.

"-Ok," Bellamy started. "-As we know, we have a lot to talk about, regarding the Overseas men, the war, the alliances. But the most urgent matter is to make sure we're the one who get to make the decisions about it. Clarke, when you were away, a new Council was elected, and obviously, we've been left out. Basically, this is more of a Kane's puppets assembly than a Council. And they still don't get anything about the world we live in now. We are planning to overthrow them during their next meeting, in an hour. Of course, none of us wants this to go badly, and the only way for it to happen is to present a solution they can accept. That means put you in charge. Us, but you in the head. We've been testing the water without saying too much, and this can work. The Commander will support us, in exchange of a long-term alliance.

-Wait. Do you all realize what this means? If we do that, there's no going back." Clarke looked specifically at the Blake siblings, then at Raven. "-Do you all really want _me _to…

-You've been in charge since we got here. Nothing's changed.

-And it didn't suit you that much last time I checked, Octavia.

-Well I thought it over. And realized that as bad as things have been, it would probably have been way worse without you."

Next to his sister, Bellamy acquiesced, leaving Clarke stare at Octavia, wondering if she really heard what the girl just said.

"-So, you're gonna get it together, or keep watching me?

-Again, I have to ask. Do you all realize what you're getting into? I don't know what information you have about the enemy, but I can tell you that we're facing a massive threat. This are thousands of lives that are gonna be in the balance. Are you sure you want to be the ones to handle that? Are you sure you want to take that responsibility?

-We have to, Clarke. We already made up our minds about this. The question is will _you _go with it? It's up to you. But we need you for that.

-We don't really have a choice, do we?

-No. But I can promise you won't have to do this alone."

Clarke considered all the people around the tables, their faces raised to her. Last time she had been in charge, she failed spectacularly, but all of them seemed to consider it as a victory, and were ready to follow her because of it.

"-All right." She only meant it was time to move on to the next subject, but even at her ears, it took a definitive sense, like she just sealed something. She didn't know who started it, but the room burst in cheering, as to confirm that feeling. The dices were now rolling.


	17. Chapter 17

Kane and his three Councilmen were already gathered, missing only Abby to make a full session, when Clarke and her people walked in the room. Bellamy was at her right, holding his gun in his familiar way, and Octavia at her left, completely warrior-like. Behind them, walking in pack, came Raven, Monty and Lincoln. Lexa, her warpaints back on her face, flanked by Maykl, Wolf and Auri, entered after them. She had required his presence, as he was the only Clan chief that arrived for now, and when he learned that he was to help the Sky Princess take the power back, he didn't even questioned the no-grounder weapons policy before following them.

They left the rest of the group –the overenthusiastic science team, all of those who survived the Mountain and wanted their friends in charge, as well as Auri's warriors- outside of the Arch, waiting for news.

At first, Kane didn't seem to understand there was anything wrong. He probably thought they were here to be informed about the most recent developments, and he actually welcomed them in the room, and told them the session was about to start, as soon as Abby would join them.

"-Clarke. I'm happy to see that you're well. I don't know if your friends have let you know about it yet, but we are about to send messengers to the closest nations of Grounders. There is a King in the Southlands, and a Queen on the sea. I was going to send for you, anyway. We have to know everything you learned while you were in the Overseas Men base. As soon as your mother gets here…

-Actually, we won't be needing her."

He frowned a little, but still seemed more intrigued than anything else. Then he understood –or thought he did.

"-Yes, we will. Maybe she didn't tell you yet, but she has been elected as a member of the new Council.

-We won't need the Council either, because those messengers we're going to send to the other nations won't be speaking for the Council."

Kane looked at them all, taking the measure of their group, as he started to realize that the meeting absolutely wasn't going the way he planned it. The Councilman Adler spoke before he had the chance to, though.

"-And who exactly do you think…"

Bellamy interrupted him, speaking louder than any of them, but with no trace of aggressity.

"-The messengers will be speaking on the behalf of Clarke of the Sky People, and every Grounder nation shall know that she's the one who will lead us to battle."

Kane put on a jaded face when Bellamy spoke, and silenced his Councilmen with a gesture.

"-I see what this is. That's where you stand again? You think that because Clarke is back, you can throw a century of democracy away?" He addressed directly to Clarke: "-I know your friends think of you as their leader, but you're not alone here anymore. This is not…

-She is not alone. She is the leader your own people chose, and all of my people will stand for her as well.

-Commander, may I remind you that we let you walk into our camp as an ally?

-That's exactly what she is. She's my ally, because I am the one the Coalition allied with.

-She speaks the truth," Auri intervened, "The Clans will walk with the Sky Princess.

-This alliance ended at the door of Mount Weather, and…

-And I'm reforging one. You need an army to fight this war, and you need me to have this army.

-Kane, we don't need those savages. Just let their child-queen play the grown-up with these kids, and let's be serious. Let's call the guards and get rid of them.

-We're not that many, here, Adler. Half of the guards had kids in Mount Weather, and they know very well who they owe their children's life to," Bellamy said.

"-Clarke, stop. You don't want to do this. You… » Kane started, neglecting Bellamy to speak directly to Clarke.

« -You're right, I don't. But this isn't about what we want. Our people are gathering everyone in the camp as we speak. We'll make the talk, you'll just have to stand behind us, and confirm that you're letting us in charge.

-That's not happening.

-It is. It is happening, whether you're on board or not. The only thing it will change is that we may have to do it the hard way if you don't cooperate.

-OK, that's enough!" Kane suddenly exploded. "-Clarke, you have no idea what you're getting into!

-Do you? We may be young, but we're no children, Kane. And we know more about the Ground than you ever will. You trusted me once before, and it paid off. I need you to do the same now, for our people's sake."

Until now, Kane had been standing at one end of the table, across the room, but he went to Clarke when she stopped talking, and stopped in the middle of the room, inviting her to come closer. She and Bellamy, walking just a step behind her, joined him. He was tensed, seemingly angry, but still reasonable.

"-Do you have any idea of what you're doing?" He asked, low enough to stop the others, Councilmen and opponents, to hear. "-I'm not talking about your coup, it has obviously been well planned. But for the rest? For what's gonna happen next? Do you even know what you're doing?

-Yes. More than you think.

-Clarke, I'm trying to protect you, here. All of you.

-I don't need to be protected. I need to protect. Look, I don't want us to be enemies. You have experience in leadership, and I can use that. This can go without any troubles, if you go along with us. You know we can handle this better.

-Do you? You disappeared for more than a month, without as much as a warning…

-I left once it was over! I left after every single one of our people was back in the camp! And I'm here now, I know more than you do about our enemy, I'm in better position than you are to make allies. This isn't about power. It's about what's best for our people, and you know the Arch way isn't anymore. Please, don't make this a mess."

Kane stared at her and she stand his look without flinching, for what seemed like an eternity. She knew he was considering the options he had, and at this point, she made them pretty clear, so there was nothing else she could say. The decision was only up to him.

"-OK," he said. "-I'm going to trust you on that. But I'll be there to step in the second you mess up, is that clear?

-Yes. You're making the right choice, Kane. Thank you.

-Fine," he raised his voice so everyone else could hear him. "-Let's do this.

-What? Kane, you can't be serious! We are the Council!

-Yes, we are, and as your Chancellor, I dissolve this Council and willfully give my authority to Clarke. And I'll do it in front of the people of the Arch as well.

-You can't do that! They're gonna get us all killed!

-That's enough, Adler. It's done." Kane turned at Clarke a last time before getting out of the Council room. "-Is he wrong? Can you guarantee me you're not gonna get all killed?

-You know I can't. But if our people have even just one chance to survive, we'll take it."

…

"-Man, that went so much better than I thought it would. I can't believe it was that simple. The all population of the Arch, and they barely protested!

-They're accustomed to do what they're told to, if you think about it. They never had a say in any decision anyway, and the Council is the one that had hundreds of them floated. It's not that surprising that they would be happy to see it replaced.

-Well, now that it's done… We definitely need to get into the serious matter. Clarke, there's a lot we have to tell you, and I'm sure you have a lot to tell us as well."

The public declaration had been easier than any of them expected it to be. They had been waiting for people to react the way the ex-Councilman Adler did, but most of the Archers were actually supportive, not only the ones whose children had been imprisoned by the Mountain Men. Obviously, the Council had underestimated the rancor people from the Arch still had towards them, and now that there was an alternative, the people had made clear that they wanted to move on. That they were ready for a new era, for their life on Earth.

They had left the computer room to the science team and brought the most powerful computer they had found on the Arch, and Monty was working even harder than before on the files of the flashdrive. Their group had took over the ex-Council room, which was larger, for their meeting. As they were arranging that, the Wood Clan's army finally arrived, Indra leading them, and she had joined them on Lexa's order. She caused more troubles than Auri did when she had to let her weapons to the soldiers at the Camp's entrance, but her obedience to the Commander finally prevailed. However, she was not pleased and made it very clear from the start. Still, she answered to Octavia's salute, even though she insisted on the "of the Sky people" part she put behind the girl's name.

"-Ok, I'm gonna try to summarize the situation as we know it, and we'll see what you know that we don't," Bellamy said. They were all sitting around the table, but he chose to stand when he started talking. "-First of all, we're confronting the Overseas Men, based on the island you escaped from, and we know for sure they have advanced technology, including nuclear weapons, or at list the possibility to irradiate lands. They're being led by a woman…

-She's not a woman. She's an AI."

A silence followed Clarke's declaration. The other Archers, who were listening to Bellamy, turned to her, stunned.

"-What?" Raven started. "-That was science-fiction even before the last nuclear war!"

Lexa interrupted the flow of questions to ask what they were referring to, for none of the Grounders knew what an artificial intelligence was, and they had no way to understand the Sky people's reaction. It was Octavia, who was sitting the closest from them, who explained it, before Bellamy spoke again.

-Clarke, are you certain?

-I've seen it. She's a machine, who projects the hologram of a woman when she talks to the people she choose. The hologram looks totally human, but I've seen the machine behind. She's called Alie. It goes for Artificial Intelligence Evolved Lifeform

-Artificial… That doesn't even mean anything when you put the words together. Clarke, you've been… That poison was meant to have brain effects. Are you sure…

-I've seen Alie before that. Yes, I'm sure. They're following a machine's orders. And she controls the men in white completely. She was in sleep mode right before we got to her, and so were they.

-That fits with what Zeke said, actually. He talked about a canal in the subject's mind, by which she commands them, and je said that this connection between that woman and the brainwashed would take over anything in their mind," Raven reminded them all.

-Ok, so, the men that attacked us are people whose brains are controlled by a machine? I'm ready to hear anything, but why the hell would a machine want to exterminate us?

-Does she? We don't know what she wants.

-She destroys lands by irradiation. She burned entire villages, she has exploitations of probably brainwashed people, she kidnaps our leader one by one to brainwash them as well.

-Speaking of our leaders," Indra intervened. "-A lot of them had been taken by the Overseas Men. Were they not in the base you escaped from?"

-They were. They left the island before I did, right after the prisoners from the Arch. Aren't they back? Lexa, you told me the prisoners made it back to the camp.

-Your people did. I did not know you freed mine as well.

-If you're telling the truth, why are our people not back?" Indra insisted. Clarke stiffened at her tone.

-I'm not lying to you. All of the prisoners I found there left the base in a teleporting room.

-Were all the ones crossed off the list there?" Lexa asked calmly, stopping Indra from replying even more angrily.

-I don't know. We didn't have a lot of time on front of us. I'd say they were around twenty.

-And all of them left and happened to disappear?" Indra spat at her.

"-They didn't disappear. The teleporting room I was in has been sabotaged from the island, and destroyed while still travelling. Maybe the same thing happened to them and the survivors are on their way.

-Sabotaged? That is convenient.

-Convenient?" Clarke stood up so brutally she almost threw her chair on the floor. "-That thing literally exploded while I was still in it! It killed one of yours, the Mist clan leader, and we had to watch her die. We had to cross half the desert with a kid that fancied himself a warrior, because that's what you do to your children, and who got killed there because of this sabotage. But, yeah, you're right, that was convenient."

Her outburst made the room quiet once again. She could see, on the side, Raven looking at her with concern, and Bellamy reaching for her.

"-Clarke…

-That proves no…" Indra started. Lexa shut her up with one word. She was the only one who didn't seem worried or kind of afraid by Clarke's reaction –even Indra looked shaken- but she had her indecipherable face back on. She raised a calm look at Clarke.

-Derna of the Mist Clan is dead?

-Yes." Clarke could only stand her look for one second, before sitting back on her chair, her heart pounding in her chest. It was nowhere as bad as it had been before they gave her the antidote, but her legs were shaking, and she couldn't tell if it was the adrenaline rush she just had or just the fatigue from the day. It wasn't even afternoon, but she wasn't exactly at her best.

-Who was the child?

-His name was Jak. He came from the Mist Clan too.

-Yes, I know who he was." Indra tried to start another sentence, and once again, Lexa didn't let her. "-Enough, Indra. Clarke said that our people left the island, and I have no reason to believe she is lying." She said something in Trigedasleng to her, and even if Indra clearly didn't take it well, she didn't add anything. She kept giving Clarke angry looks, though, but the Sky leader payed no attention. The only look she was seeing was Lexa's. She imperceptibly nodded at the Commander's attention, to let her know she appreciated the trust she just showed. Lexa's poker face didn't change, of course.

There was a tensed silence in the room, which Bellamy was the first one to break.

"-So, Alie. We should as well keep it up with the "she", since she takes the appearance of a woman. Here's what we know. She has exploitations of humans. She brainwashes them and uses them as slaves and soldiers. She destroys the territories of the nations around her, using nuclear radiations, and in the same time, tries to brainwash the leaders of those territories. We sent scientists who thought they could do something about the Wastelands, they probably didn't make it, and gave us no sign of anything, even though they were supposed to contact us. Clarke, did you talk to her? Do you know anything about this City of Lights that the ex-chancellor mentioned?

-He kept saying she was going to save us all, that the world would be reborn and that those who serve her would be rewarded in the City of Lights, but he never said anything concrete about it. But he said that thanks to us, she would finally be able to end it.

-End the world?

-I think so. She didn't say a lot about that, but she said something, when I realized what she was. She said she was the next step.

-Evolved Lifeform… That's what she meant? That she's the next step of evolution? The next life form?

-Guys, we're talking about a machine, here. It's not even a form of life.

-Well, a conscious machine. That might have been the next step of life, if the ancients managed to create them before blowing themselves up.

-Apparently they did. And she wants to end the job.

-Wait, do you think she's the one who started it?

-No, that makes no sense. There was a World War. That's what started the job of irradiating the planet.

-And last time I paid attention in history class, back at this period, computers were pretty much in control of everything, including the nuclear missiles.

-And people were in control of the computers! They were just machines used to control things.

-And if someone had created an intelligent, conscious computer, back then? Don't you think it could have found a way to really be in control?

-What she did or didn't do one hundred years ago doesn't matter. What does is what she's doing now," Clarke said. "-What matters is that she might be really powerful, master technologies we lost a century ago or never had, but she is also vulnerable. I found my way to her almost alone, and there isn't that much soldiers there. Probably more now, after our escape, but still.

-There are thousands of people in the farms, though. Now, she knows that she's not that protected, and she can dispose of them the way she wants. They could be turned into an army in any time, for what we know.

-And if you're suggesting we should directly attack her, it leads us to the question of alliances. She's based on an island, and we can't bring an army there without boats. Commander?

-The Boat People are targeted as well, as we seen in the files you brought back. She endangers them too. I know Luna, she will not be a problem. If we need to sail an army, she will help us to protect her people. But whatever we decide to do, she needs to be warned as soon as possible.

-And what about Allander? He's the king of the Southlands, Clarke.

-Allander's smart," Wolf answered. "-And he doesn't take attacks against his people lightly. If we need an army big enough to fight all the soldiers that Alie could create, he's the one to turn to. As Lexa said, we need to send messengers, right away.

-And you will be leaving with them, that's the plan?" Octavia intervened.

"-It is." Octavia turned to Clarke at this answer.

"-Clarke, I don't think we should let her. We don't know her, she's not one of the Commander's warriors, and she knows everything we do. She could be working for anyone.

-Anyone," Wolf repeated with a smile. "-She means the Overseas Men, I believe."

Clarke hesitated. She saw the Grounder on the pictures Alie kept, along with her own, the pictures of the Clans leaders, Lexa's picture.

"-Wolf's loyalty is not in question, I already made that clear," Lexa said coldly.

"-Well, don't take it the wrong way, Lexa, but your word is far from enough," Clarke replied, and the Commander raised her head at her. She wasn't accustomed to be contradicted, even less disrespected, and her look clearly showed it wouldn't pass easily. Her reaction still surprised Clarke when it came.

"-Can we talk in private?" Her voice was icy, and Clarke realized she used those exacts words on purpose, to remind her of the time the Sky leader was the one to ask that question. To tell her that she had no choice but to accept. She heard Octavia's snarky comment to Raven as she left the room with the Commander: "-Clarke and Lexa sneaking away, that feels like déjà-vu…"

The hallway right before the door was guarded by Arch soldiers and Grounders warriors, so they had to get into another room in front of the Council one to actually manage to get some privacy. Lexa started as soon as Clarke closed the door.

"-Clarke, we are allied, now. You need to…

-To what?" Clarke interrupted her, suddenly angry at her. This was Lexa's lecture tone. "-Trust you? We are allied, yes, but I did not negotiate that alliance, and as far as I'm concerned, that means that you're only tolerated in this camp, and that your word has only the value I give to it.

-This is not what had been discussed.

-You're right, it isn't. Because you discussed it behind my back, and put me in a position where I had no choice but to accept the all package, without as much as an explanation.

-Listen to me…

-No, you listen to me! Last time, we did everything on your terms. We did all that you asked for, no matter what it cost us, and made peace at your conditions. But you came to us this time, Lexa, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't just to be friendly. You came to us because you need us, way more than we need you. So this time, this is gonna go on my terms, and I am gonna be the one to hold the reins.

-I will not stand for this, Clarke. You cannot built a real alliance on distrust and rancor.

-This is not about revenge, Lexa, despite what Indra seems to think. This is about me learning, and you sure taught me a lot. Among other things, you made pretty clear that there is no real alliance. Only common interests. And I don't know the first thing about this girl's interests, so I'm gonna need more than your word to let her leave this camp with all our information.

-You have more than my word! Do you not see I don't have as much as a knife on me? Have you not seen all my warriors leave their weapons at your gates? Do you even realize what this means? I put my life and my people's life in your hands, Clarke. Is that not enough for you to believe me?"

That stopped Clarke's anger dead in its track. She had noticed that Lexa as Indra were weaponless, but since the moment she got up, she didn't have that much time to wonder about it. She considered the Commander, taking the measure of what it meant, for a grounder, to be disarmed in a foreign territory. Lexa had accepted to be vulnerable, in order to get this alliance working.

"-That Wolf… Do you trust her?

-She never once told me something that was not true. I believe what she says, yes.

-Fine. But if anything goes wrong with the messengers, it's on you."

She was about to leave the room to join all the others and continue the meeting, but Lexa hadn't move.

"-One more thing, Clarke.

-What?

-You once asked me how I dealt with the pain, I answered your question, and you told me you could never stop caring. Obviously, you did not.

-So?

-You showed me how strong you were. Maybe you can be caring and strong, but you need to find a way to live with the pain. Otherwise, it will eat you alive. You will never be able to carry on if every death takes such a toll on you.

-Well, maybe I just don't have what it takes to be a cold-blooded killer, Lexa. Everyone can't be as strong as you are.

-You blame me for what happened. I understand, but what would you have done?

-The same thing! That's what you want to hear from me? I did the exact same thing and you know it! But unlike you, I can't just shake it off, walk away and go back to war pretending that nothing happened!

-Do you think this is how it went for me? Do you really think it was that easy to "shake off"? I thought you knew better.

-I thought I did too. But here you are, telling me once again that in order to lead, I can't feel. So now I'm thinking I may have been wrong.

-I am not telling you not to feel. This is what I tried to do, because I was not strong enough to handle the pain. Maybe you are. But right now, what I see is not someone handling pain. It is someone drowning in it.

-You were not…

-Not strong enough, that is what I said. Not strong enough to live with the pain of Costia's death, not strong enough to live with myself after I left you at the Mountain's door. But I did not have a choice. I had to keep going, and so do you. So you need to figure out a way to do that by yourself, if mine disgusts you so much."

Clarke wasn't able to break free from Lexa's eye contact, nor to stop hearing the Commander's voice again and again in her mind. There was only Lexa to make such a mess with her emotions in just few sentences. She didn't know anymore whether she was angry or not, and even less why she felt angry. Because of what Lexa did, because of her attitude or because, since they were reunited, the girl didn't stop showing how much she cared, and still kept talking like she didn't, making Clarke even more confused than she had been before they met again. Or maybe she was just angry at herself for feeling so troubled by Lexa's eyes on hers, by the closeness between them. They were really close, she realized, standing only few inches from each other. This was the one thing she was determined never to feel again, the one thing she knew for sure she couldn't have if she wanted to do right by her people.

"-Why do you even care so much?" She asked. She meant to be aggressive, to push Lexa away, but it sounded soft when she spoke. Yet, the Commander stepped back a little, her mask back on.

"-We have a war to fight together, Clarke, and your people need a leader. You cannot afford weakness now."

And on that, she was already leaving the room, Clarke on her footsteps.

…

The meeting went on for a long time, until late in the afternoon, and by the end of it, Clarke was practically shaking with fatigue. They had send two teams of messengers, accompanied by grounder warriors, to avoid them to end up like the science team which still hadn't give news. One was going to straight to the Southlands, the other one to the East sea.

All the mechanists they had in the camp had been affected to the fabrication of new radios, so they could send their young scientists to the Wastelands while keeping contact with them.

They had talked a long time about a direct attack against the Overseas Men base, to get straight to Alie, but they were worried about the human farms as well. As they saw in the flashdrive files, there were thousands and thousands of people prisoners there, under Alie's control. Should she unleash them, they would turn into a powerful, or at least very large, army. There were fourteen of them, one north of the Coalition's lands, four on Lexa's territory, five in the Southlands, and the last four on islands of the East sea.

Clarke couldn't say who first launched the idea, but at some point they started to talk about simultaneous attacks. Fourteen farms and Alie's island meant an army divided in fifteen units. Fifteen huge units. The very idea seemed like a logistic nightmare, especially since they weren't even certain yet to have the Southlands and the Seas armies by their side. The security of the farms was also way more developed than in Alie's base, and that meant even more difficulties. Just gather the army and make warplans would take few weeks, but in the meantime, they could deal with the Wasteland once and for all, or at least get the population far away from them until Alie was taken down.

They finally ended the War Council session, more so they could go give orders to everyone involved in their plans than because they were out of subjects to talk about. Clarke let the others leave before she left her chair –Raven was still there, though, as well as Lexa- and was still sitting when the heard the commotion at the door. She recognized her mother's voice, and understood that the guards hadn't let her in before the meeting was over. She herself gave them orders to not let anyone in except in case of emergency, and she kind of forgot that her mother might wake up in the afternoon when she did. Lexa was about to leave with her warriors, but when Abby passed by her, furious, she lingered next to the door. Raven got up, but Abby didn't even pay attention to her.

"-Mom," Clarke started. She knew her mother and wanted to calm the storm before it exploded, but it was a lost cause. She couldn't tell if Abby was more pissed off about the all sedation thing or about the coup, or if she was mostly afraid for her, but anyway, she wasn't happy with her daughter. Clarke gestured the two other girls to go so she could talk to her mother alone. This was gonna be family matter, not government.

The very first thing Abby did was not yell at her, though. She took her in her arms, and didn't let go for several minutes, and Clarke didn't push her away. Her mother's embrace didn't feel like home anymore, and she wasn't sure to deserve so much love, but it was still so comforting. And she could tell her mother needed it even more than her.

"-I thought I lost you, Clarke. I thought… I love you so much. I love you."

Her mother was crying, she realized, and she almost let herself cry as well.

"-I love you too."

And then, the storm was on. Abby had let her in charge once, but mostly because she didn't have a choice at the time, and she never intended for the situation to stay that way. She wanted her baby girl back, Clarke realized. Even after all that happened, her mother still saw her as a child she had to protect. Some part of her wanted nothing more than that. Just let the grown-up in charge, let her mom take care of everything, as it was on the Arch. But this wasn't the Arch, she wasn't a child, and she was in charge.

They argued for what seemed hours to Clarke, and it went from serious fight to weeping discussion and then fight again. She finally had her mother taken back to the infirmary by the guards, not because it was over, and certainly not because it was the best solution to reason Abby, but because she felt like she was gonna collapse from exhaustion, and that would certainly not be a point for her. She had a throbbing headache that was starting to make her nauseous, to make things even better, and now she couldn't even access the infirmary to get a pain-killer, since it would just lead to another fight.

She fell back in her chair, her elbows on the table, and her head in her hands. She didn't want to while her mother was still in the room, but once alone, she burst in tears, shaken with sobs. Too much in one day, she thought, too much to deal with. Drowning in pain, she remembered with a shiver, and Lexa's thought only made her cry even harder.

"-Clarke."

She had the reflex to wipe her tears from her face when she heard Bellamy's voice, but it was quite useless, since her cheeks were so wet she only managed to dry half of it. And he clearly saw her anyway. He looked so sad, standing across the room and watching her try to regain composure.

"-It's OK, I'm just tired. It's making me emotional, that's all. Don't worry.

-I'm sorry we had to throw you into all that so fast. We didn't…

-Have a choice. I know.

-Still, I'm sorry. I wish you wouldn't have had to do this.

-Don't worry, Bellamy. I'm fine."

She fought with all her forces the urge to let go of her strong attitude and just start crying again. He would comfort her, she knew he would, and she needed to be comforted, but she also knew she couldn't lean on everyone. Lexa had already seen her as a complete mess, and it was bad enough.

"-Do you want go back to the infirmary to sleep a bit?

-I can't go there right now. I just had the worst fight with my mother, and if I step a foot there, I'm likely to start the fourth World War.

-Hey, we can handle your mother."

She smiled as she finally managed to get her face dry, hoping her eyes weren't too red.

"-We can't get her sedated every time she's inconvenient, you know. We would be short of meds before she stops trying to stop us."

It made him laugh a little, softly.

"-You can go rest in my room, if you want. I think there are also free rooms near to the Commander's one, if you prefer to have your own right now. I'd rather know that you're not alone, though, after what happened. You look way better, but we're not quite sure you're OK. The science kids insisted that this was an experimental antidote that they gave you.

-I guess your room's fine, then. Thank you."

She followed him through the hallways of the Arch, barely memorizing the way, and she practically collapsed on the bed the instant they got into the room.

Bellamy closed the door and turned to her, to tell her he would be around, or Octavia, if she needed anything, but when he looked at her, he realized she already fell asleep, not even fully on the bed. Her upper body was, and her face buried in the pillow, but she was lying askew, her legs hanging out of the bed. He verified that she was breathing normally, that she really was just asleep, and once he was reassured, smiled at the sight. She looked nothing like the strong woman she had been all day, and more like a child who tried to stay awake after bedtime.

He went to take her boots off, which didn't seem to disturb her sleep, and even when he put her legs on the bed, she didn't react. She only moved when he lifted her a little to take her jacket off.

"-Shh, everything's all right, Princess. You just rest. It's all right."

He waited to see if she was gonna wake up, but she just moved her head and stayed still after he put her back on the bed. She had fallen asleep on the blanket, and he didn't want to bug her again, so he just went to the closet to get another one and covered her with it.

He sat next to the bed, watching her sleep. He was gonna leave soon, to go talk to Monty and see if he made any progress, to check on the science team as well, and he would probably need to swing by the infirmary, try to talk to Abby, both about the dissolution of the Council and about the help the med students could use in their work on the poisons. But for few minutes before doing all that, he wanted to stay with Clarke, to make himself truly realize that she was back, alive and well. He had missed her when she was gone, but he trusted her to come back once she would have made peace with what they did in the Mountain, so it wasn't that hard to deal with. Thinking she was dead, though... It broke his heart. Hard. He hadn't been able, until Octavia told him about the Archers found in the desert, to stop imagining the Overseas Men appearing out of nowhere behind her, somewhere in the woods, before shooting her and let her, dead, lying on the ground in a pool of blood. When the Overseas Men attacked, Bellamy and the others had time to fight back because they were marching in two separated groups, but Clarke was alone, and they would have killed her before she even had the time to use the gun that was the only thing she had to defend herself. And Bellamy had let her walk away, alone to deal with her guilt, as if she was to blame, as if all that she did hadn't saved lives. She saved him from his demons, and he did nothing to help her fight hers.

But now, she was back. She was back, alive, right next to him.

He jumped through the room when someone started to knock at the door with strength and opened it before the noise woke Clarke up. Maybe it wouldn't have anyway, but he didn't want her to be bothered at all. Octavia was waiting for him to let her in, and he stopped her, closing the door behind him to go talk to her in the hallway.

« -Clarke's sleeping, » he explained.

« -At five pm ?

-Are you serious ? She almost got brainwashed, you'd be tired too.

-OK, good point. But why isn't she back to the infirmary ?

-Her mother's there, and apparently, she's freaking out. What were you coming for ?

-I wanted to ask if you knew where she was, actually. We thougt she would go to the infirmary and since we couldn't find her, Lexa's starting to freak out as well. Although she does it more discreetly than Abby, I'm sure. I'll go tell her.

-Actually, could you stay here and make sure Clarke's all right while I go talk to the others ? I've got tons of thing to do, but I don't want her to be alone. I can send anyone tell Lexa, but I can't have anyone watching over Clarke. »

Octavia had a grunt of protest.

« -She' sleeping anyway, she won't disappear ! I've got other things to do than baby-sitting her !

-You know someone needs to watch her. We don't know if she really is fine yet, and you don't want her to get sick again more than I do.

-Fine ! But it's really only because of you, 'cause you won't be able to think of anything else othserwise, and I'm tired to see your desperate face all over the camp. You really were down all the time she wasn't there, and since she got back, it's like you did too. So yes, I'll stay and watch her, but just to make sure that you're all right !

-Thanks, Octavia. »

She shrugged, but he knew his sister, and could tell she was smiling when she entered the room.

...…...…...

The room was dark when Clarke penibly emerged from sleep, at the sound of a voice calling her name, and the feel of a hand on her shoulder, gently shakink her. It stopped when she first opened her eyes, and she immediately started to drift off again, not awake enough to realize that someone was trying to wake her up.

« -Hey, Clarke, wake up. »

She mumbled something, with the vague hope it would shut that bugging noise away.

« -Wow, you really are out. Come on, doctor's orders!

She recognized Raven's voice, and forced her eyes open for good.

« -Hey, Sleepy head ! Really thought I'd had to throw cold water at you, for a minute.

« -Hey. » She sat on the edge of the bed, and couldn't help but protest like a kid when Raven switched the lights in the room while her eyes were still adjusted to darkness.

« -No offense, but you really look like crap, Clarke. That's rare on you.

-I don't have the energy to be offended right now. What time is it ?

-Around eight o'clock. Don't worry, you still have a full night of sleep in front of you, it's just that your mother thougt you should eat a little, and finish the night at the infirmary, so you can be watched over by actual doctors. I can't guarantee she's all calmed down, but she'll let you rest, she knows you need too. There's a shared bathroom down the hall, if you want, with everything you'll need. I can't stay, Wick's waiting for me, we're working on the radios, but Bellamy insists on walking you to the infirmary. I just wanted to check on you for myself. Are you OK ?

-Don't worry.. I'm fine, just tired.

-That's not what I meant. Bellamy didn't say a lot about you leaving, but from what I got, you were quite a mess. And by what you said this afternoon, it seems like you've been through a lot in between. So... I'm pretty sure you're not fine.

-I have to be, Raven. I can't be self-pitying right now. We don't... »

Raven moved to the bed to sit next to her.

« -Hey. You're right about that. But that doesn't make you a superhero, Clarke. You can't carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, not alone. And you don't have to, you know that ? We're together in this. All of us.

-That's not what I'm trying to do. Look, Raven...

-You don't need to talk about it if you don't want to. I get that. But you're not alone, OK ? You weren't alone in what we did in Mount Weather, and you're not alone now. And, now I've been cheesy enough for the rest of the year, so I'll leave it there. But don't forget that, Griffin. »

When Clarke got back from the bathroom, Bellamy was waiting for her, just like Raven said and he brought food with him. She didn't feel that hungry, but it only took few bites to prove her wrong, and she ate her share fast.

« -Do you need help with anything ? Now that I'm up ? » She asked after they ate, as they were really to leave for the infirmary.

« -No, don't worry, I can handle. Just rest for tonight. When the rest of the Grounders are here, you may not have time to do so.

-When will you rest, then ? You were up last night, weren't you ?

-I grabbed few hours of sleep. It's not late, the night just began, I'll find time to sleep too. Don't worry about me.

-You worry about me.

-Of course. You almost didn't make it, and then you've been thrown in the Arena. That's a lot to take in two days, especially since you don't seem to have had a calm month. » He paused when he was the way she looked at him. « -What's wrong ? What did I say ?

-It's not you, it's everyone. Even Raven, who I thougt would be so mad at me. How can you all be so... So nice to me ?

-Clarke, no one is mad at you. Well, Octavia is, but I think that's more because she was scared of losing you and she doesn't like to admit it. But we're not blaming you, OK ? We were all on board. This was the only way to save ouf friends.

-But I killed Finn for nothing. I let Tondc burn for nothing. That was not all of us, that was me. All those people died because of me.

-Stop that ! The deal Lexa made with Mount Weather wasn't your fault ! If you hadn't done what you did, the Grounders would have killed us to the last before we could even think to march against Mount Weather, Clarke. If you hadn' done exactly what you did in TonDc, the Mountain Men would have found me, killed me, and then killed all of our friends while you would have been standing outside, unable to get in, and they would be more powerful than ever, right now ! Same thing if we hadn't... Clarke, don't do this to yourself, please. We all had to do things we... You saved our friends. You saved us all by making Lexa trust you. »

She didn't resist when he came closer and hugged her, holding her tight against him. His body was warm, as always, and for one second, it felt like everything was allright, as long as she was surrounded by all this warmth, as long as she had a friend to keep her safe in his arms. But the impression didn't last long.

He gently tried to keep her close as she pushed him away, but she stepped back, going for the door, hoping she wouldn't start crying once more. He meant well, she knew that, but all the comfort they were trying to give her made her feel so wrong. She didn't deserve any of the troubles they were going through to help her. Yet, when he grabbed her arm, she stopped and turned back to him. The least she could do was to not hurt his feelings.

« -Clarke, wait. »

He took a step to her, closing the distance between them, so she found herself her back against the door, staring at his dark eyes. For the second time, she felt the warmth of his body against hers, but he didn't hug her, this time. Before she realized it, he was kissing her, one arm around her waist, the other caressing her neck, and it was burning and soft at the same time, so passionate she almost gave in. She absolutely didn't want to, not to Bellamy, or anyone else, but his touch made her body react like it had been craving for it, and she clung to him, not stopping him, because it made her feel more warm and alive that she had been in weeks.

Few seconds later, though, she finally got a hold on herself and broke their contact, almost violently.

« -Clarke...

-No. »

She was shaking, still leaning against the door, fighting against tears, and she couldn't look at him. « -No.

-I know. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have. I know you cared about Finn...

-This isn't... This isn't about Finn, it' s not about anyone else, Bellamy. I just can't. I...

-Hey, you don't have to explain yourself. I shouldn't have done that anyway, it's not fair to impose my feelings to you right now. I just... thinking we lost you, it made me realize how much I want you, I need you by my side. I...

-Don't. Please, don't, Bellamy. »

She saw that sad, so sad look he could have, the same he had when she left him at the camp gates, in his eyes, and at this moment, a part of her wanted to take back what she just said, and tell him it was OK, to welcome his feelings. It felt so awful to hurt him that way, when he was trying so hard to help her, when he clearly sincere. But she couldn't use his feelings just to make herself feel better.

« -OK. But that's how I feel, Clarke. I'm here. I want you to know that. »

...

When she arrived to the infirmary, Bellamy escorting her, her mother was there, obviously waiting for her. Clarke hated to feel so anxious around her, but still walked in, thanking Bellamy before he left. He nodded, with a half-smile on his face. They didn't talk, all the way to the infirmary, but it hadn't been an akward silence, and she was grateful for that. As deplaced as the comfort he was trying to give her felt, it would have been even worse to alienate him.

Her mother was calmer than she was in their last meeting, thankfully. Clarke could tell she was still not OK with what happened, but she was worried enough about her daughter to not start another fight. She looked like she couldn't decide between being angry at Clarke or being relieved to have her back, and it showed in the way she talked at her, sometimes cold, sometimes as motherly as Clarke knew her. She installed her in the same bed she had been the night before, appart for the rest of the room, and was almost agressive before leaving, but she came back right after, as Clarke was lying, on the verge of sleep, listening to the other people in the infirmary, and arranged her blanket to cover her to her chin, as she used to do when Clarke was still a child. She talked to her softly, telling her again how much she loved her, before kissing her good night, and stayed with her until she fell asleep, just few minutes later.

She's walking in a silvered hallway, and the walls open one by one in front of her, so she keeps walking endlessly, faster and faster. She knows she will soon be there, and she's not alone, for her legions are following, all the people she has come to rule, the silver-eyed army she leads. The hallway is ascending but she's not slowing down in her way to Her. It's finally time for the final reward, and the stars appears around her as she avances toward the City of Lights, leaving the burned Ground behind her. But, as she's almost arrived, she turns around, and down below, she can see the world she's leaving, and it's not forest, mountains and desert that she's leaving, it's the fifth floor of Mount Weather, and all the corpses are lying in their blood, all of those she killed to fulfill Her will. Not the Moutains Men on this floor, but the sky people, all of those she couldn't take with her on the path to the City of Lights, all those she couldn't convince to follow. She can see Bellamy somewhere, his eyes injected with blood, and Monty, and everyone else, dead because they did not follow Her. Around her stand all her silver-eyed followers, and she looks for her mother among them, but she's not. She's lying on the ground down below, and not far away from her, there is a body burned by the radiations of the Wastelands, but she knows it's Lexa, and she can hear her die, she can hear all of them die and she feels happiness at this sound, for they died because they defied Her, and none of them will be reborn.

Clarke brutally woke up on a scream, Lexa shaking her out of her sleep. She had thrown the blanket away while sleeping, but she wasn't cold at all, on the contrary.

« -Clarke, calm down, you're safe. It was only a nightmare. »

Despite Lexa' reassurance, it took her more than a minute to start breathing at a normal rythm again, and even then, the images of her dream didn't fade away at all. Lexa was right here, so she knew it was indeed nothing more than a nightmare, but it had felt so real she could recall the faces of the silver-eyed people around her. She could recall the love she felt for Alie in the dream, her complete dedication to her, and all the stars around her as she climbed the silvered hallway.

« -Are you allright ?

-I'm not sure. I just saw... It felt so real !

-I know. But it was just a dream. You were here all night.

-What do you mean, you know ?

-I mean that I know exactly how real nightmares can feel, even after you woke up.

-You have nightmares ?

-Every night. »

The two words silenced Clarke. Lexa was as calm as usual, even though she admitted some kind of vulnerability, just like that. She was there in the dream, and Clarke could still picture her, lying in a pool of her own blood, so burned it took the omniscience of dreams to recognize her.

The silence between them allowed Clarke to realize that the infirmary was noisier than when she arrived in the evening, and quite crowded.

« -What's going on ? Did something happen ?

-The chiefs and seconds of Clans you freed have arrived few hours ago. They are all sick, just like you were.

-They're all being brainwashed ? But none of them has been injected !

-That is true. Your healers think they have been poisoned through gaz. »

Clarke thought back to what Jaha did to the Grounders, before she joined them, and to what they looked like when she found them. Several of them had been screaming things about the City of Lights, and they looked so weakened when they all got in the teleporting rooms. So that was why they had been so long to find their way to Camp Jaha.

« -I should have known. I think saw it happen, but I didn't realize what was going on. How did they even got here, if they're all like I was two days ago ?

-Some of them were, but others had resisted better. They helped each others.

-Your people are so strong. I could never have helped someone on my way back.

-And yet all those who were conscious said they owed you their lives.

-What ? I just...

-You freed them and sent them to safety while you stayed there. I owe you my people's lives, Clarke.

-Why aren't you with them ? » Clarke asked, ignoring the shivers that Lexa's tone just have her. She said those words with so much intensity.

-I was, but there is nothing to be done for now, and I am no healer. So I came when we heard you scream. Your people, those who created the antidote, are making as much as they can of it, but they think they will not have enough for all of them.

-What are we gonna do, then ?

-We will try to provide your healers all the ingredients they need before it is too late. If we do not succeed, I will order them to cure the chiefs first, and then as many seconds as they can. »

It shouldn't have surprised Clarke, even less shocked her, but seeing that Lexa had already calculated which people she could afford to lose still made her sick. There wasn't a choice, though, and the Commander had to do what was best –or rather what was less bad. And looking at Lexa, she couldn't find a reason to be mad at her at this instant. She was standing next to Clarke's bed, but seemed far away, because now that she knew Clarke was all right, all her attention was to her people surviving in the rest of the room. And she looked so tired, even more than Clarke when she saw her reflection in the bathroom mirror few hours ago. She wondered once again how many time had passed since Lexa had last slept, but she couldn't ask that. She didn't want to care that much. She couldn't care about Lexa's state, about Lexa's nightmares, or anything else, even though Lexa's presence was the only one she could stand without feeling wrong and guilty.

« -Lexa, I'm not sure the antidote in one hundred percent efficient. »

Lexa's attention was brought back to her immediately, and Clarke saw that she scared her beyond what she expected.

-Are you not feeling well ? Is the fever back ? »

She leaned to Clarke as she asked the questions, and put her hand on her forehead to check on her temperature. Her sudden closeness reminded Clarke of what happened with Bellamy sooner, and she felt her heart pounding just by thinking of kissing and to Lexa at the same time.

« -No, I'm fine, » she said, getting a little away from the other girl, trying to forget what just happened in her mind. « -But my dream... I'm sure it wasn't just that. For a moment, I thought like Jaha, I was... I knew about the City of Lights. And I... I knew what it felt like to have Alie in my head.

-Is she ? Clarke, is she in your head ? »

Lexa's gaze wouldn't let go of her eyes, and it was seriously starting to mess with her emotions, mostly because she wanted more of this closeness they hadn't had in weeks, and that she missed, without admitting it to herself. She missed Lexa's intensity, she missed having her only few inches away from her.

« -I don't know, » she managed to say. Every beat of her heart was sending waves of warmth through her body. « -I can't feel anything that isn't me, but I saw things that didn't come from my mind.

-Then perhaps we can use that. Have you seen anything we did not not about ?

-Yes, actually. She had thousands of followers, and their eyes were the same color as everything in her base, silver. I know that might just be something I imagined, but I'm sure it's real. And the City of Lights, I was this close to understand something about it. I think I did, but it faded away when I woke up.

-Were Jaha's eyes silvered ?

-No. But I never saw one of the Overseas Men's eyes. And the science team did say there were several different poisons, didn't they ?

-Yes. The one she injected you with, as well as my clans chiefs, is believed to be the lightest one. Maybe... »

They were interrupted by Jackson when he called for Lexa, on a tone that left no doubt regarding the urgency of the situation. Both of them rushed to him. He was next to one of the warriors, that Clarke didn't recognize, and trying to keep him still enough to inject him something. The Grounder was having convulsions so violent that Clarke feared he might break his back.

« -Help me contain him, I have to give him that shot, or he will kill himself. Be careful.

-Is it the antidote ? » Clarke asked, grabbing the man's arm to keep it immobile while Jackson made the shot. Lexa was blocking his chest and his other arm, even though she couldn't completely block his moves.

« -We don't have it yet. This is just to make the convulsions stop. One of them almost choked to death an hour ago, and two others died on us. Their hearts just failed. »

It took several minutes for the medication to act, and they had to hold the man until then. By that time, Clarke had looked around in the infirmary, to see that the twenty or so people she freed from Alie's base were no more than ten, now, and that none of them looked like he was gonna make it for long. Despite what she said about not being able to do anything, it looked like Lexa was everywhere at a time, going from one warrior to another, helping the doctors in any way she could, making sure all of the sick ones stayed hydrated, refreshened. The healers from the River and the Wood Clans were there as well, Clarke noticed, doing all they could to relieve the sick warriors.

The sun rose hours ago when the science team finally arrived with the antidotes.


	18. Chapter 18

Hello!

Again, sorry for the wait; I didn't mean it to be so long, but as I was writing, the story got bigger than I expected and I had a hard time planning everything (plus busy last few months, which didn't help). Anyway, this chapter is the last of the first part (which, if I had thought about making separate parts _before _I started to write, would have been called Reunion); the nineteenth chapter will be the first of the second part, Campaign.

Hope you'll enjoy!

In the end, they had enough antidote for seven of the warriors, out of ten.

They injected five chiefs of clan with it, and two seconds. Lexa had made her mind as soon as the science team told her they may not be able to save them all, but actually designate the ones they were gonna help and those they would let be brainwashed was still the worst moment of the night.

The Sky healers protested when she let them know which ones they were to help, because one those she chose not to inject was a child. A little girl who wasn't even on Alie's list. Lexa figured she had been taken with her chief only because she was around when the Overseas Men kidnapped him. It probably had been the same for Jak, she thought when Clarke had told them about the boy. All the seconds on the list were those who were practically certain to become leaders of their clans if their chiefs were to die. That little girl wasn't, of course; she was just a child that her chief found promising, and that made her less valuable than an experimented warrior, ready to fight and lead his people if needed. As true as it was, it didn't seem to convince the Sky healers. They kept saying that she was just a little girl, as if it wasn't the exact reason why Lexa couldn't save her instead of a grown warrior. When the child's heart stopped beating on its own –it was to be expected, since her temperature rose even higher than Clarke's on the previous night- they tried everything they could to reanimate her. Lexa wasn't happy or relieved to see her die, of course, but she still thought it was better for her than to wake up brainwashed. Obviously, the Sky healers didn't see it that way, and they didn't take her death well.

All the ones they injected survived, and only one of them stopped breathing as he was convulsing, only to be quickly brought back by Abby. The two seconds still infected, Lexa had them separated from the others, since no one knew how it was gonna go for them. Maybe they would wake up in few minutes changed in Alie's servants, maybe they still had few hours. The ones injected with the antidote started to get better really fast, as Clarke did, and Lexa started to think that maybe she could finally leave the infirmary. It was almost midday, already, and she and Clarke would soon need to go to the Council room, where the new War Council was supposed to meet. That thought made her realize that Clarke wasn't around anymore. Lexa was certain the Sky girl was here when the science team arrived, but now, she was nowhere to be seen, and Lexa couldn't recall when she last saw her. Had she left because of the little girl? Or had she simply decided to get straight to the Council room, since she couldn't do anything more here? Anyway, it wasn't careful of her to wander alone, even in the camp. They were at war against an enemy that could appear out of nowhere and disappear as fast, after all. Lexa knew that she probably wouldn't accept a Grounder bodyguard, and they couldn't carry weapons in the camp anyway, but at least, Clarke needed one of her own warriors to watch after her.

As she went out of the infirmary, she was immediately joined by Maykl, who had been waiting outside, and he told her than scouts from the Nomad Clan had arrived, announcing that their army would be there before sunrise. By that time, their leader, Terell, who was lying in the infirmary at this moment, would probably be awake. Before Lexa took the direction of the Council room, she was forced to go to the gates of the camp to deal with a group of warriors that had been caught carrying concealed weapons. She had been expecting something like that to happen sooner or later, but she still didn't know which way she would deal with it. If she let them walk away with it, word would spread that her orders weren't enforced, and it wouldn't take long before others start to act out. But punishing her warriors for not obeying the rules enacted by the Sky people couldn't bring anything good either. She needed to negotiate those terms with the new Council. When she had let go of her own sword, few days earlier, she was trying to get their trust back; she didn't mean it to be permanent, especially after Bellamy came to her with his proposition of alliance. If he had trusted her with that, surely he would be okay with letting the warriors of the Coalition carry their weapons with them, and Lexa was certain Octavia would be as well, since she would be back on Indra's tutorage soon, but they were not the ones who would take the decision, even if they would have their word to say. It was Clarke she needed to convince and Clarke already showed that she wasn't ready to trust Lexa anytime soon. In the meantime, she compromised by being severe enough to make the other warriors well aware that her orders weren't to be defied, but not enough to provoke anger in their ranks.

Only then she tried to find Clarke to accompany her to the Council meeting. After checking both the Council room and the computer room, hoping she would be in one of them, Lexa started to get really worried. The camp was rather large, and there were a lot of other places where she could have been, but not that many where she had reasons to be. She wasn't either where Raven worked, nor with any of her friends.

Then, Lexa noticed the kids. For what she had seen of this camp so far, children from the Sky people tended to stick with their parents, even the older ones, but the previous day, when Bellamy and Clarke made their announcement, Lexa had seen a bunch of them in the front row, without adult supervision. Orphans, she assumed. They had been among the first ones to cheer for the new Council, so she remembered their faces.

She first spotted one of them, hidden next to one of the entries of the Arch, signaling something to one of the others. The second one gestured him back, and that was one the only reason Lexa even saw him, for he really was well hidden. Looking around more carefully, she realized there were two others around, and the closest one from the entry was clearly talking to a third one, whom she couldn't see, because he was inside of the Arch. She walked back to the entry, and the kids almost vanished as she came their way. She had seen them, but now the hallway looked empty, and it made her think that none of the Sky people who walked this way knew they were being spied by a bunch of children. Were they trying to listen to the next Council session? If so, they had been smart to position themselves before it started; afterwards, the guards would have been all over the place. She had to get all the way to the Council room to realize that it was not what they were watching after; they were actually surveying one of the smaller rooms in the hallway, few meters away. It wasn't locked, and when she opened it, she heard one of the kids trying to talk to the others silently, which ended up in a loud whisper. Clearly, they still needed to work on some of their spy skills.

The second she entered the room, it became clear what they were watching after. Clarke was there, alone, sitting against the wall, her arms enclosing her knees. She raised her head when she heard Lexa come in, but looked away as soon as she saw who it was.

"-Clarke," Lexa said softly. "-You shouldn't be alone."

The room was dark, the only light was coming from the small round window in the wall, but there was enough for Lexa to see Clarke shrug.

"-Is the girl dead?" She asked, instead of answering.

"-Yes."

This time, Clarke truly looked at her, and Lexa was struck by the lack of emotions on her face. It may be a progress, compared to her breakdown from the previous morning, but those blank eyes didn't seem better. Even more than Clarke's tears or anger, they made Lexa realize how messed up the girl was.

"-If Derna and Jak had made it to the camp too… Would it had been the same for him? Would you have let him die to save her?"

Lexa hesitated, mostly because she knew Clarke would probably not like the only answer she could give her.

"-In those circumstances, yes. People need their leaders more than ever, in times like this. I can't afford to lose them.

-He saved my life!" Clarke's voice trembled on those words. "-You know his sister, is that what you would have told her, that you couldn't _afford _to save him?"

If there was one thing that Lexa knew how to do, it was to look completely emotionless. Yet, the sudden mention of Shaïra in Clarke's mouth was such a surprise –and not a good one- that she couldn't help but react, and as quick as she regained composure, she could tell that Clarke didn't miss it.

"-There is no point arguing about something that didn't happen," She said firmly, hoping to close the subject. Where was _that _coming from? Clarke had spent only hours with Jak, and from what Lexa understood, it hadn't been nice moments of chatting. When had he found the time to tell her anything about his sister? Why would he even know anything about Shaïra and herself? Also… How much did he know, exactly, and how much did he tell Clarke?

Clarke shook her head and turned away again, and Lexa wondered what answer she had been looking for, to seem so frustrated by the one she gave her.

"-Your friends will be waiting," She finally said, to break the tensed silence that fell into the room.

"-I'll be there when the session begins" Clarke didn't look at her when replying. "-Go away, Lexa."

Maybe it was the sight of Clarke hiding alone in the dark, or how lifeless her voice sounded, or the way she was shutting her off. Or maybe it was just the sleepless nights starting to weigh. Either way, at Clarke's last sentence, Lexa felt her eyes water, and her attempt to blink the tears away only send them rolling on her cheeks.

Clarke was turning to her, looking kind of angry, probably ready to tell her to go away once more, but her expression completely changed when she laid eyes on her. Lexa turned around, reaching for the door and trying to keep calm. No one -no one- ever saw her cry, except for Costia, even in the worst moments she could remember, and there she was, for nothing, over few words!

"-Wait!" Clarke's voice stopped her as she was crossing the door, and if a part of her wanted nothing more than slam it behind her, forget what happened and NEVER be that emotional again, she still stopped. Leaving Clarke behind while she was asking her not to felt even worse than to be seen like that. So she closed back the door and waited, not daring to face Clarke.

"-I'm sorry, Lexa. I know you're right, I just… I can't take that again and again. Whatever I do, people keep dying, and I… And I'm still alive and I don't know why, and I can't stand being with the others, they all act like… Like I'm some kind of hero… I killed _hundreds _of people, and let die even more, and I keep doing it, but everyone…

Clarke's voice was breaking in the middle of her sentences, and she had to take deep breaths to hold her sobs and keep talking. Lexa had managed to stop her own tears, but every word was hurting her. She could practically hear herself, years ago, trying to cope with all the deaths she caused as Commander, and knowing that Clarke was struggling with the same pain was almost worse.

"-You're the only one who… Please, don't leave.

-I won't," She said, turning back to Clarke. "-I'll stay as long as you want me to."

And she stayed, sitting in the dark with Clarke, for almost an hour, most of the time in silence, until it was time to leave for the Council room. At some point, though, the Sky girl asked her how she found her, and Lexa told her about the kids who apparently made a mission of not losing track of her.

-Probably orphans," she said.

"-How do you know that?

-Your people never let go of their children. The only unsupervised ones I saw were the ones who lost their parents. You could use them, you know."

Clarke looked at her like she just proposed a mass murder for fun.

"-Use the kids? What do you… I've seen the way your people use kids, how would even think that…

-I did not mean use them to fight. But they seem more efficient than guards when it comes to finding people. You could use them as messengers around the camp.

-I can send any soldier to do that.

-Yes. But a child is the most loyal partisan you can have, he can be more discreet, faster than anyone else. It wouldn't be dangerous to them, and it would make them feel special. Every child needs that, and they don't have their parents to do it anymore."

Clarke gave her another look and seemed about to say something, but instead stayed silent for a while, and when she answered, Lexa was certain that it wasn't what she had wanted to ask in the first place.

"-Do you think it would please them?

-To be at the special service of their leader? You don't remember very well what it was to be a child if you think otherwise.

-I'm pretty sure being a child on the Ark wasn't the same as being a grounder child.

-All children long for greatness. For prestige.

-All children, or you as a child?"

Lexa didn't answer immediately, wondering why Clarke would go dwelling on such personal matters. Two dozens of minutes ago, she didn't even want to see her, and now this.

"-All children. That includes me at the time, of course, but no more than any other. But like all orphans among our people, I needed to really be special in order to survive.

-Yeah, I figured that you…" Clarke stopped, looking sadly at her. "-What happened to your family?

-I don't know. I was too young to remember. Killed in a fight against another clan, surely. My brother was too young to fight, so I suppose he was executed.

-You have… Had a brother? Oh, Lexa, I'm sorry.

-I am not. We were twins, both born the day of Commander Willos's death. Had he survived, one of us would have had to kill the other. It's for the best that I never knew him.

-Is that how you were chosen? By killing the other children born on the same day?

-Yes. It is the way we know which one is chosen by the Commander's spirit. It is the only one who survives.

-And how did you survive until that day? Who took care of you?

-No one took care of orphans back then. It was already hard enough to protect your own children. Other orphans helped me until I was old enough to help myself. We all had to show the clan that we were worthy, that we deserved a place.

-Why do say that as if it was over? Don't your people still struggle to survive and protect their family?

-Of course they do. But you have no idea how worse it was before the Coalition. Entire villages were destroyed in battles and fires. No one was ever safe. The rivers were poisoned by human bodies rotting in it. Things now are far from perfect, but… We are progressing."

At Clarke's lack of answer, Lexa kept silent too, not wanting to rush her. Whatever it was that she had said, it seemed to have an effect on Clarke, though, since she finally decided to follow her advices and leave that dark room. The kids were ecstatic when the Commander and the Sky Princess told them that their services would be useful. They scattered like a flight of birds after this, fully ready to go spy on anyone else, and even though Clarke didn't seem very convinced, Lexa thought this was a good idea. Even if they were to get caught where they had no right to be, no Sky people would suspect them to be anything else than kids playing.

…..

The both of them spent that night together. Not in a romantic way, though; maybe not even in a friendly way.

After the War Council meeting, Lexa went back to the infirmary, where she found the leaders of the clan awake and well –at least as well as they could be, given the circumstances. The two warriors that had been left without antidote –one was the second of Da'chel, leader of the Desert Clan, and the other one of the Ice Nation leaders – were still comatose, and except for their rising temperatures, nothing had changed. She spent a moment there, beginning to think that she could as well install her tent and all of her stuff here, since she had been there more than anywhere else in the camp since she arrived.

The sun would be coming down soon, and when it did, she started to think that she might be able to get some sleep, this night. Her scouts hadn't signaled any clan close enough to get there before the next day, and now that Clarke was there, safe and sound, maybe she would be able to sleep without being awoken by nightmares in the middle of the night. Maybe not, though; maybe it wouldn't be that easy. She had had troubles to sleep for a while, now, since Mount Weather. She never used to be like that. Excpet for her debuts as Commander, and the times right after Costia… Except for those times, she had always been pretty much in control of her sleep – it was a necessity.

As she left the Arch to get out of the camp – now that some clans were installed right outside Camp Jaha, she had a tent among them rather than the room Kane attributed her – she passed the Council room on her way, and in it, saw that Clarke –alone again- was still in there, sitting by the large round table. She was at the place she occupied during the Council sessions, the one at the very end of the table, the furthest away from the door.

"-It's late," She told Clarke, entering the room. The other girl heard her come in, but didn't react, nor to her entrance, nor to her voice. "-I thought you were to meet your mother in the infirmary and have some sleep there. You're recovering, you need it.

-I'm not sure sleep will help with that.

-Because of your dream?

-It wasn't just a dream. Not all of it, at least. You know what this means, right? Maybe none of us, the clans leaders and I, are cured. Maybe if we go to sleep, something else will wake up in our place."

Her blue eyes met Lexa's.

"-Don't sleep alone, then. If you start dreaming, someone can wake you up. Ask someone to…

-To what? Hold my hand while I sleep because I'm afraid of nightmares?

-You just said it wasn't just a dream.

-And it's good to know that you believe me, but I'm pretty sure no one else would. It was a dream, until it started to get real, how do I explain that to people who had been taught to believe only in science their all lives? Plus, I'm in no position… Everyone is ready to obey our War Council now, but how long do you think that will last if I start telling people that I'm either hosting a hostile A.I in my head or believing that I have magical dreams that tell the truth?"

Her tone became almost aggressive at the end of her speech, and she kept looking at Lexa, right in the eyes, like she was defying her to come up with an answer.

"-Come spend the night with me, then."

That seemed to surprise Clarke enough to make her forget that she was starting to be angry.

"-What?

-You think your people won't believe you, thus won't help you. But I do. I can help you."

Clarke had objections, all of which Lexa dismissed. She was only protesting for the form, it seemed. It was only when they both entered the tent, few minutes later, the she realized why Clarke had been reluctant. Being both in there, alone, was an awfully strong reminder of the time they spent together before Mount Weather, and when her look crossed Clarke's, she could see that it was the same for her. Both of them quickly looked away. It wasn't the same tent, but looked enough like it to be the place where they had fought, where they had grew close to each other. The place that for a brief moment had been their little two-personed world. And being reminded of that was also being reminded of what Lexa had done two months ago. All of this was lingering in the air between them, and the pressure was too much for Lexa to take. It was all too close of all that she tried to repress since Mount Weather.

"-I have to go talk to Auri and the other chiefs, make yourself comfortable in the meantime. I'll be back soon. Maybe I will have to deal with some things later, but I'll be here most of the night. Maykl will be right outside, but I can send for Ryder if you prefer someone you know.

-Anyone you think is better suited is fine with me. I don't really know Ryder anyway.

Lexa nodded, nervously. A part of her couldn't wait to get out, to escape the tension, but the rest of her was reluctant to get away from Clarke.

"-Fine. I won't be long."

As she was leaving the tent, she heard Clarke's voice, hesitant.

"-Thank you."

She turned back, but Clarke wasn't looking at her anymore.

…..

It wasn't the first time she stayed awake several days without sleeping, she told herself again, fighting her sleepiness. She had been looking after Clarke for few hours now, and staying awake was becoming harder and harder as time passed. It was not the first time, and not even the longest time she had ever spent without sleeping, she remembered. No, that would be the summer after she turned fourteen, during the campaign against the Swamp Clan, which had lasted the three moons of summer. It wasn't that long compared to some of the campaigns she had led, but this one had been a total war. The lasts weeks, she had been awake at all time, not daring to go to sleep, because every minute she wasn't available could be the one that cost them the victory.

It had ended in a battle that lasted four all days and nights, and even though she knew she had been there fighting and leading all along, she could barely recall it, or anything that happened in those days, and the memories she had were fuzzy at best. Even the ride back to Polis had seemed insurmountable: the Coalition was brand new, she was constantly stopping her own warriors to fight against each other, constantly had to prove herself stronger than any of them, to prove that she wasn't just a powerless little girl playing to war, but a real Commander. And she had done well, very well, and most the clans who participated to that campaign proved themselves loyal to her afterwards, but at that time, all that she knew was that she couldn't take one more day.

At the time Polis was finally in sight, she could barely stand still on her horse –and there was still so much to do, so many protocol things to do, so much… She knew she had presided an assembly and gave a victory speech that pleased the people of Polis more than she could have hoped for, but she knew it only because Costia told her afterwards. She couldn't remember any of it to save her life.

What she did remember was that at the moment she had finally been free to get back to the room she dreamed about for the last hours, Gustus practically had to carry her there. She remembered that when she collapsed on the bed, she was still so tensed, she had been fighting her body for so long that she had no idea how to let go, and that she had burst in hysterical cries. After days of longing for sleep, now that she could finally have it, she was too exhausted to relax enough to fall asleep, unable to think, to talk in coherent sentences, unable to stop crying. After a while of this, Costia had been so scared by her state that she sent for a healer, who had quickly cooked up a preparation to make her sleep. Costia had to help her drink it, and in just a handful of minutes, she was plunged in a deep, dreamless sleep which lasted three days straight. She emerged just long enough to keep up with the situation, give some orders –rather give them to Costia and Gustus who transmitted to the others councilors and clans leader- and went back to sleep for two more days. _That _had been hard. Staying awake just few days in a row, compared to that, wasn't much of a challenge.

This was what she kept telling herself as she found things to keep herself occupied, as she was watching over Clarke that night. The Sky girl had woke up around midnight, shivering, which reminded Lexa that it was the first winter the Sky people would see, and that they weren't used to the cold. Luckily, the Commander's tent was always furnished with furs, among other things, and Clarke was now sleeping, peacefully, it seemed, all wrapped up in it.

Lexa held back a yawn, and decided that since she had time before her, she could as well do the little things she didn't take care of those last days, like sharpening her weapons or any other thing that she kept delaying. She wasn't afraid to wake Clarke up, since the girl was by far the heaviest sleeper she ever met. It was a Sky people thing, she thought. They weren't used to be in constant danger, they never had to learn to sleep lightly enough to wake up at any sound.

A short time before the first light of the day appeared, silence fell over the camp. The noises of the warriors and the horses, the noises of metal, all of this was muted in minutes. When Lexa got out of the tent to confirm what she was thinking about this, she saw that all of the camp was indeed being slowly recovered by the snow falling all over the land. There already was a layer of it, thin enough for now, but at this speed, it would soon be really thick. It had started late, this year, but now that it was on, it probably wouldn't melt before spring. A bad time to start a war, she thought. It made travels harder, demanded more of the warriors than clement weather, and for the Sky people, it would be even harder. Nevertheless, the spectacle of thousands of snowflakes whirling in the sky had something beautiful, mesmerizing.

Clarke had never seen snow, Lexa realized. It would be her first time contemplating the ballet of snowflakes in the air, the first time she would see the lands in white coat, enveloped by silence. She had never burned her hands in the snow, never played in it, even as a child. Lexa didn't have the most playful childhood, but even her, when she was younger, even before she became Anya's second, had charged fortresses of snow defended by others kids armed with snowballs. But none of the Sky people had ever experienced that kind of winter. Were there even seasons in space? Or was it just always the same, in those narrow, grey and dark corridors? She could hardly understand how they stood to live in those can boxes for so long. There was nothing natural, for human beings, in being locked up in such tight and artificial spaces. Especially if they were to miss all that made Earth beautiful.

Clarke started dreaming, and obviously not good dreams, short after Lexa got back in the tent, and the Commander immediately woke her up. Turned out it was just a regular nightmare, not an Alie one, but the Sky girl was still glad that Lexa avoided her to go through all of it, even though she wouldn't tell what it had been about.

"-Well, it's still early, you can sleep a few more hours. But there is something outside that you might like to see."

Clarke put on her boots and jacket, which made Lexa think that all of the Sky people were going to freeze to death before the end of winter if they didn't adapt their wardrobe. In the meantime, she gave Clarke a thick coat and new gloves. She would have to get new boots as well, for hers wouldn't stop the cold and wetness of the snow.

Clarke stopped at the entrance of the tent with an exclamation of surprise. She ended up staring at the sky with wide eyes, seemingly fascinated, and as she took her first steps outside, her feet sinking in the powder snow, Lexa could see a smile –not the weak one she gave to her friends, but a real, unconscious smile on her face.

It came to her mind that Clarke probably didn't know what the snow was mostly used for, and she considered the idea to give her a demonstration. Her warriors were still in the tents, delaying as long as they could the moment when they would have to go out in the cold, so there wouldn't be anyone to see the Commander act in a childish way, but she was not certain of how Clarke would react. The snow had certainly cheered her up, but still –their relationship was tensed at best. Throwing a snowball at her, as tempting as it was, might not be the best line of action. Though she would be the perfect target, not even suspecting that something like that could happen.

That was not serious, she herself, kneeling to the ground anyway, watching Clarke from behind to make sure she wouldn't notice what she was doing. No, not serious at all. Not Commanderlike. She didn't even remember how long it had been since she last done this. She hadn't had the leisure to be childish in years –even when she actually was a child, she always had to be above the others. This was definitely not a smart thing to do, not a good time to do it, but it was so, soooo tempting.

Clarke's reaction when the snowball came crashing on her neck was even better than what Lexa hoped for. She jumped away with an exclamation, almost a scream, which, if it was mostly of surprise, wasn't exempt of fright. She looked all around, and her eyes fell on Lexa, who clearly was the only person around, and whose face showed only a perfectly neutral expression. Clarke stared at her for few seconds, like she couldn't believe what her eyes were telling her.

"-Did you just throw snow at me?" She finally asked, incredulous.

"-I was merely introducing you to the customs of winter on Earth.

-What?

-Snowball fights."

Clarke's eyes widened even more.

"-Are you serious?" At her tone, half offended, half stunned, Lexa felt her lips twitch into a smile that she had a hard time not letting show.

"-Not quite" She said, enjoying the look on Clarke's face. "-You're supposed to fight back", she added, as the girl didn't react. A handful of minutes later, her hair and face were dripping with melting snow, her clothes soaking wet, and Clarke was in no better state.

The Sky girl was the first one to stop, because she was the one who saw the rider approach, since he came from behind Lexa. Fortunately, she spotted him from far enough for the both of them to stop before he could see what they were doing. He was a messenger from the Desert Clan, sent by his leader to announce the arrival of their army later in the day.

"-I should be here when the chief arrives," Clarke said, after he left.

"-Yes. But not alone. You should bring warriors with you, if only for the decorum. And those from the War Council. I'll have someone escorting you back to Camp Jaha.

-You're not coming?

-There are some things I must handle. Be back in the afternoon."

…..

The two poisoned warriors woke up and killed each other. Lexa wasn't there at the time, but at what she managed to get from the reports of those who had been, things happened in less time that it took to say it. They had woke up, immediately put their hands on medical equipment that could be used as weapons and slaughtered each other –at the same time and without fighting back at all. It had looked like they knew exactly what they were doing. To Lexa, it wasn't such bad news, even if it would have been preferable to save at least one of them. It meant that Alie had wanted them dead, and there weren't so many reasons why one wouldn't want her soldiers to be in the hands of the enemy. Having prisoners brainwashed could give them an advantage –maybe a way to get to her, maybe information that they could use. And it also meant that Alie had never meant for her brainwashed leader to stay among their people after their conversion, which didn't enlighten them a lot regarding her agenda, but it was still information.

In the next days, it became clear that she had been right to enjoy that time with Clarke, after all, because the snow morning was one of the last times when things went well between them. Clarke had slept in her tent two more nights, and those times had went fine, but apart from that, almost every time they saw each other, in private or with the Council and the clans leaders, there always was tension. There was always, at some point, a moment when Clarke would find a way to get aggressive to her, to throw something at her – when she wasn't just ice cold. At first, Lexa hadn't reacted -the fact that Clarke couldn't figure out how to deal with her just yet wasn't surprising- but with days passing, it only became worse.

The weird thing was that there also were times when Clarke seemed to be ok with her, more than with everyone else. As far as Lexa could see, she actually didn't spend time with anyone else than her. As soon as the meetings were over, she would or stay with Lexa or manage to stay alone, depending of the attitude she had towards the Commander that day. Or that hour, really, because it kept changing. Which soon started to get to Lexa's nerves. She could handle the depressed Clarke she had seen the first two days after she woke up, she could handle angry Clarke, she would happily deal with friendly Clarke –but having to constantly guess which one of those she had in front of her before it exploded in her face, no. Maybe she would have put up with it in different circumstances –again, Clarke most certainly had good reasons to be messed up right now- but they were preparing a war, she had to deal with more and more warriors arriving, most of them furious to be forced to leave their villages in the current situation, as well as handling the chiefs, who weren't all, from far, as easy as Auri, and on top of that, it had been more than a week since she last found time to sleep. Not that she didn't try, but the clans armies seemed to always arrive at the exact moment when she thought she finally could get some rest. And when it wasn't that, it was Clarke. Not that Lexa minded to help her, on the contrary; what she minded was to help her one moment and get yelled at the next. And then being talk to normally, which made her think it would be all right, and being snapped at at the most unpredictable moment.

She never knew what to expect, and it was becoming tiring, making her nervous every time she had to see Clarke. Still, when after having fought with her all day (or rather having been fought, since she made a point of not answering in the aggressive way that she used),Clarke still showed up in her tent for the night, Lexa was relieved that she did. Being around the Sky Princess made her anxious, but the idea of losing the… the whatever-it-was that they had was way worse. Maybe they should define that whatever. Maybe it would be better to talk it out once and for all, instead of carefully avoiding it, letting it linger between them at all time. But Lexa was too scared of the result this might bring. What she had with Clarke right now was a poor excuse for a relationship, but at least, it was something.

"-Are you all right? You don't look well." She asked to the Sky girl, once they were left alone by Maykl. The last few days, Clarke had been getting better, as did the clan chiefs they had saved, but this evening, she was terribly pale.

"-Just a headache. It will pass in the night."

So this was one of the times she decided to be civil. That was good news.

"-By the way, you really should get some sleep as well. I don't know how you're still standing.

-I've done worse. I'll sleep someday. You don't have fever, right?

-No, it's really just a headache. It went away while I was sleeping, last time, it'll do the same today. But really, Lexa… I'm sure you can handle worse, but it still isn't good for you. You have to rest. After all, I had only one dream of Alie, and none of the chiefs had any. Maybe it was just the poison wearing off or a one-time thing.

-Let's just do as usual tonight. If you keep having only normal dreams, we'll see."

Clarke sank into sleep like a stone in a pond, and it didn't take long for Lexa to realize that something was wrong. She had seen Clarke sleep quite few times by now, and had gotten accustomed to the rhythm of her breathing, to her slight moves –and to her recurring nightmares. She didn't need all of the medical machines of the Sky people to know it wasn't it. She wondered if she should send for a healer. For now, it didn't seem like anything dangerous was going on, after all. Clarke was only… well, nothing, really. She was just sleeping more deeply than usual.

She checked her temperature regularly throughout the night, though. She forced herself to get up and move around every time she started to feel sleepy, and she was up, having almost fallen asleep while sitting next to the table, when Clarke suddenly –brutally- jerked in the bed.

The Commander was near the Sky Princess in the second. She called her, shook her, gently at first, then, as she was getting no result, with more strength. No response except for a moan. She stormed out just the time to send Maykl get a healer, and rushed back in. Clarke's breathing had accelerated, and Lexa felt anguish starting to overwhelm her. No matter how hard she tried to wake Clarke up, the girl wouldn't react, staying completely limp and it looked so much –too much- like the day she came back to Camp Jaha. On the verge of panic, she practically screamed Clarke's name, and with an unarticulated cry, her Sky Princess finally opened her eyes.

At first, she seemed so lost, so unresponsive, that Lexa, for few terrifying seconds, really thought that her fears came true. At the sound of her voice, though, Clarke seemed to wake up for good, and talked in a strangled voice.

"-Lexa.

-Right here. I'm here, Clarke. Everything's all right.

-No. No, it' not. We have to go see Monty.

-What? Have you seen something that…

-I don't know what it was, but… I think there's something that can help him for the files. We need to go."

Before Lexa could stop her, she was getting up, ready to leave the tent.

"-Clarke, wait! You can't go outside like that, you're practically barefoot!"

The soundness of her point seemed to make it to Clarke, since she stopped to put on warm clothes, but that was all Lexa managed to make her accept before she left the tent. When she tried to stop her, to make her rest a while, or at least get checked on by the healer, Clarke freed herself of her grip almost violently.

"-Don't touch me!" She hissed, and her voice was so hateful that Lexa almost backed off, hurt. Then, as they looks crossed, she saw Clarke's expression softened, her anger changing to sadness.

"-You cried", the Sky girl said softly, looking at her.

Lexa brutally took a step back, about to spit that she didn't, but she soon realized it was true. She did cry of fear as she was trying to wake Clarke up. She furiously wiped her tears out, before rushing after the Sky girl, who already was on her way again. She grabbed Maykl and the healer to follow them to Camp Jaha, in case of.

They caught one of the birds –the name the messengers kids chose to give themselves- out of his bed and had him lead them to the two rooms that Monty's family occupied. His parents were scared at first, when brutally awoken by slams on their metal door, then a little angry, then back to scared when they realized that this was no joke and that their leader and the grounder Commander really were at their door, urgently requiring their son. Monty was barely awake when he came out, his hair as messy as a bird's nest.

"-What's going on?

-We need to go to the computer room, now. It's about the cores of the Wastelands."

He didn't ask more and grabbed his stuff, ready to leave with them, as lost as Lexa about what Clarke was talking about. She knew more than what she told Lexa in the tent, obviously, so why was she holding back the information she had?

"-What do you want me to do?" Monty asked, once installed in front of the computer.

"-Go to the files about the Wastelands and the cores.

-They're encrypted. I can't access them, I tried all I knew, really.

-Try this."

She dictated a list of numbers and commands, and if Lexa wasn't surprised to not understand a thing, the fact that Monty seemed to be startled her.

"-Clarke, how do you…

-Doesn't matter. Can you make it work?

-Yeah! I think so, yeah! It will take a little time, but yeah."

Clarke then turned to Lexa: "-I don't know for sure what we're gonna see, but it might… I think this is all worse than we thought. The Wastelands, what's happening to your people…

-Clarke, what did you…" Monty's presence made her hesitate to finish that sentence, but the boy looked like the screen in front of him and the keyboard under his fingers had become his all universe. "-What did you see?

-I don't know. It's confused.

-So confused that you remembered precisely all that you just told Monty. Stop lying to me. What did you see?"

Clarke frowned and bit her lip, barely daring to look at her, which confirmed what Lexa was thinking.

"-If it's any true, we'll see it in few minutes anyway. If not, there's no need to worry about it."

Lexa would have insisted more if she thought she had a chance to make her talk, but she could see that Clarke was set on not telling her anything. Monty was still typing whatever gibberish that seemed to make sense only to him, and looked satisfied of the way it was going, so she decided to wait for him to get the information Clarke refused to give her. She Sky girl sat next to Monty, watching what he was doing, giving him few recommendations as he progressed, and Lexa couldn't help in any way, so she took a seat as well, waiting for the two Sky people to get some results. After a minute or two with the clicking of the keyboard and the occasional mutter from Clarke as only noises, Lexa leaned her head against the wall on her side, still listening to them. She was asleep before even realizing that she was drifting off.

…

It took Monty a little more than half an hour to crack the main file open, and when he finally did, a list of smaller untitled filed appeared on screen. Clarke turned back to Lexa to tell her it was done, but the sight stopped her before she spoke a word. The Commander was sitting, almost rigid, her arms crossed, in one of the chair behind them, but her shoulder and head were leaned against the wall, her lips slightly parted on a slow, deep breathing, and her face more relaxed than Clarke had ever seen it.

For the very first time since Mount Weather, in that moment, she stopped resenting Lexa. It had never hit her so hard, it had never showed like it did now, how much weight Lexa had to carry every minute of her life. She always appeared so strong, so experimented, so natural in her Commander role… But right now, Clarke couldn't see the fierce and ruthless Commander, not even the seemingly emotionless Lexa she had learned to know, but only a girl who, for the first time, didn't seemed older than her, just an exhausted girl trying to help her and the thousands of people who depended on her, all in the same time.

Waking her up only to announce her awful news suddenly seemed cruel to Clarke. Monty turned back too, wondering what was taking so long in calling Lexa, and saw her as well.

"-Oh. We should…We should wake her up, right?

-Yeah," Clarke said reluctantly, even though she felt the exact contrary. It didn't take a doctor to know that Lexa needed to sleep. Monty gave her an interrogative look as she kept watching the girl without making a move toward her. She knew she had to wake her up, though, if only to stop feeling so weirdly protective of her.

Like all grounders, Lexa didn't sleep very deeply, and it only took the contact of Clarke's hand on her shoulder to make her sit up straight, fully awake in the second.

"-Monty got in."

Lexa got up immediately, and only asked how long she had slept.

"-Not even an hour. Monty's been quick.

-Good. Where do we start?

-That, I really don't know. Just open them as they come, Monty.

-Sure. Hmm… It's just more formulas here… We should show them to the science team this morning. More formulas… Graphics…

-Of what?

-Previsions about the expansion of the Wastelands, number of affected people in every site… Oh, Clarke, is that what you were thinking about?"

Despite knowing very well that her Alie's dreams were real, Clarke still felt her heart skip a beat when she saw what Monty was talking about, why he suddenly got scared.

"-What is it?" Lexa asked nervously, behind her. It was Monty who answered.

"-It says contaminated zones, phase one.

-Phase one?" Lexa repeated, before the meaning of it hit her. "-The Wastelands, the villages destroyed, are the phase one? Out how many? What's going to happen next?"

Monty ran through all the other files, as quickly as he could, to find her answer. After he finally did, the three of them just stayed silent for few instants, staring at the screen, as if they could make it untrue if they kept not believing it.

"-The silver eyed," Clarke muttered eventually. "-That's why I saw so many of them. All those people… All the people around the Wastelands are being brainwashed as we speak.

-It can't be true," Monty protested. "-It's not possible!

-I left them there to Her. I failed them."

Clarke forced herself away from the screen to turn at Lexa, alarmed by her tone.

"-You couldn't have known. Or done anything, for that matter.

-We have to tell the others," Monty intervened.

"-Yeah. See what else you can get out of those files, I'll send the birds wake up everyone else. We'll meet in the Council room in half an hour, is it enough for you?

-Yeah, I think so.

-Ok. Lexa, you should get the clans chiefs too."

Not the shadow of a reaction. Lexa was staring blankly at the screen, her eyes locked on the red line of the second graphic, the one representing the hypothetical number of people brainwashed or about to be. Her people, about to be turned in a hostile army, if it wasn't done already.

«-Lexa? Are you all right? »

The question, the worried intonation, had slipped out Clarke's mouth before she could stop herself. Lexa seemed so away that she wondered if she wasn't in shock, or if she wasn't just too tired to even start processing. Either way, her question made the Commander snap out of her seemingly frozen state, and expeditiously approved the meeting before storming out, not really answering to Clarke, followed by Maykl and the healer, who stayed waiting outside the room this all time. The two Sky people watched her leave.

« -I don't think she's all right, » Monty stated.

« -Yeah, I know. »

Clarke swallowed with difficulty. Lexa's precipitated departure left her a weird feeling, like something had just been ripped off of her. It was hard to say with her, but she had seemed so upset, and Clarke could definitely relate. It was no time to take care of feelings, though, less than ever. And it wasn't like she could have make it any easier for Lexa had she wanted to, anyway.

The War Council, at his full, was starting to look more like an assembly: on the Sky people side, Bellamy and Octavia were of course there, as well as Monty and Raven, Abby and Kane. Zeke and Leal, as the head of the new science department, and Galton, whom Clarke thought could be useful, since he already demonstrated good leading capacities, were also participating, and few birds were hiding above the ceiling.

Lexa was still flanked by Maykl, but all the other Grounders were leaders of the clans Terrell of the Nomad Clan, Desert leader Da'chel, Artaras of the farmer Clan, as well as Neymos and Akanis of the Ice Nation, were the survivors from the Overseas Men base. The others were Auri from the River Clan, Indra, Wundar, the Grasslands people's chief, Kotkarao, leader of the Eagles Clan, Sarita from the Spirit Clan, Tangas who led the Cave people, and Nia, the new Ice Nation queen. The Mist Clan, the Snow Clan and the Clan of the Great Lakes hadn't arrived yet, but except for them, the all coalition was represented.

Monty had printed simplified versions of the graphics to make sure that the Grounders wouldn't have difficulties to understand it. It took a while to get over the commotion that came with the announcement and start to really talk. A lot of the chiefs wanted to leave right away, to get back separately to their clans, to their people and villages, but Lexa refused to let them break apart. At that decision, one of them angrily asked her if they were just supposed to let their people be turned against them without doing anything.

« -We are going to do something, but we won't break our army. Staying united is our best chance against the Overseas Men. You will all stay here and fight by the Sky people's side.

-And what about our villages?

-I will leave with some of our warriors through the lands and we'll organize the evacuation of the contaminated zones and the defense against the turned ones. »

The world crumbled under Clarke's feet.

There was a new wave of shouting and protestations, which she barely heard. Finally, seeing that Lexa was about to say something else, she raised her voice, making sure it made the others quiet.

« -No! » The Sky people looked at her, waiting for the rest, and the grounders waited for their Commander's reaction. « -No, we can't risk you like that. What will we do if you're killed?

-There will be a new Commander, of course.

-Right, the one your spirit will find, and how exactly do we find him after that? We don't have time to...

-You wouldn't have to look; it will be one of the children born the day the previous Commander died, right before I became Commander, we know where every one of them is.

-And that makes them how old, those kids that are supposed to kill each other to determine which one your spirit will have chosen?

-Six years old. »

This answer cut Clarke's protestations as she tried, without success, to not dwell on the fact that if Lexa had been Commander for six years, it meant that she was barely more than a child when she began to lead.

« -Clarke has a point, » Bellamy intervened before the Grounders had a chance to. « -A six years old Commander is the last thing that we need right now.

-He or she would obviously be seconded by those I would have chosen until of age to lead.

-And this six-years old kid, seconded by people with the authority given by a dead Commander would be leading the Coalition? This might be the quickest way to get a civil war ever! No. You can't go," Clarke said firmly.

"-That decision is not up to you. It concerns the Coalition only…

-It impacts all of us! If anything happens to you, we might lose all of our chances to win this. We need you here to negotiate with Allander and Luna, and we'll need you to go to war. Your people here are warriors, you can send any of them inform and protect those in the villages.

-No. I owe protection to my people. They need my help...

-You won't help _anyone _if you get killed or captured by Alie !

-Capture is very unlikely.

-Doesn't make it better!

-This is not a discussion. I'll leave before sundown."

From both ends of the table, Clarke and Lexa stared at each other in silence after this last sentence, as the hubbub of the rest of the Council started again. It went for a while after that, but the essential had been decided in those minutes. Lexa demanded her Clans leaders to choose the warriors that they wanted to send with her, while the science team got back to the computer room to work on the new decrypted files. Several of them were to leave with the Grounders to try to neutralize the Wastelands on their way.

When everyone left the room, both Lexa and Clarke stayed still, waiting to be left alone. Clarke had a second of fear when Lexa headed to the door, but she only went to lock it and turned to her while doing it, like asking for confirmation. Clarke nodded then called around for the birds. A knock on the ceiling answered her –since they had found about the ventilation conduit, they were everywhere. She thanked them before asking them to go away, but to leave one of them in the hallway in case they would need to send a message to someone, and to send one of them to the computer room, one to Bellamy and one to Raven. They always seemed to know where everyone was, and it was a very efficient way to communicate through the camp, as Lexa predicted.

"-Clarke…

-Don't leave. Please, don't leave. We… I need you."

Lexa looked pained, but chased it away almost immediately.

"-My people need me, Clarke. You don't. You don't even want me, most of the time.

-It's not…" Clarke took a few seconds to try to put in words the confused mess of feelings she was struggling with. "-I never mean to hurt you, I just don't know how to be with you.

-I know, Clarke. That's my point. Maybe it will be better to be apart.

-No, you don't understand." No matter how hard she tried to keep them away, tears –of sadness and fear- rolled on her face, as she got closer from Lexa. Not like the girl was going to run away, but the distance between them had become unbearable.

-I know even less how to be without you, Lexa. I can't… You're the only reason I can keep carry on! I need you, Lexa, please.

-I have to go! I have to protect my people."

Silence fell between them for few seconds, before being broken by Clarke. Her voice was low and calm, but what she said hit Lexa harder than if she had screamed it.

"-You said you'd stay with me."

At the way Lexa's face changed, Clarke knew she caught her completely off guard.

"-You heard that.

-I believed that."

In few steps, Lexa crossed the last feet still separating them, coming so close that she left no other choice to Clarke than to back off away from her or to stay at touching distance. The Sky girl didn't move, even when Lexa's hand came cupping her cheek, even when Lexa slowly caressed her arm, not even when Lexa got yet closer, so much that Clarke thought that she was going to kiss her. She didn't move, even then. But Lexa surprised her by just putting her lips on her forehead, in the softest, most tender kiss. Clarke closed her arms around the girl's waist, wishing, despite everything, that none of them would have to let go, wishing despite all that she decided, that she could keep feeling Lexa's lips on her skin, and the caress of her hand on her face.

But wishes had no power on the ground, and eventually, Lexa's kiss ended, and her voice was carrying cries when she spoke again.

"-I can't stay."

Clarke held her tighter, slowly realizing how powerless she was about this. Lexa was about to cry too, now, but even if it was to break her heart, she was going to leave, and all that Clarke could do was holding her as long as she could.

"-But, Clarke…" Lexa said in a strangled, full of regrets, voice, as she took a step back, making Clarke reluctantly let go of her. She took Clarke's hand in hers, her green eyes locked into hers. "-I'll make you a promise, and this one I will not break. I will come back. I will come back to you before the second moon of winter. I swear I will."

Clarke brutally took her hand out of Lexa's. "-I don't know why I keep trusting you time after time.

-Clarke…

-Stop. Talking!

-Clarke, I mean it.

-I don't care!" Which was a complete lie, but anger was so much easier to bear that what she was really feeling. Maybe this was a shared impression, because Lexa, for the first time, didn't just ignore her outburst and finally snapped at her as well.

"-Then why are you making this so hard? Whether you care or not, just make up your damn mind!"

Lexa regretted those words the second she heard herself saying them, as Clarke stepped back, all color drawn away from her face.

"-I'm sorry, Clarke. I shouldn't have said that. I did not mean it.

-There are a lot of things that you shouldn't have said," Clarke answered in a dull voice. Lexa tried to stop her when she went to unlock the door, but the Sky girl disengaged her arm from her hand in a violent move, and knocked the door open. She didn't even turned back when Lexa called her name.

"-Wait!"

She could have sworn that Clarke slowed down, hesitated, but she kept going, leaving her alone at the door of the Council room, trying to fight back her tears. By the time Clarke got out of her sight, she was clinging to the door hard enough to hurt herself, and it would eventually leave a painful bruise on her left hand. But at this moment, physical pain was the less hurting thing she was feeling. Clarke, that thing that they almost had, had been her only glimpse of happiness in years. And she wrecked it, and even managed to wreck it twice, and now she was going to leave Clarke, feeling angry and betrayed, behind her, again.

….

Both of them lived Lexa's departure, few hours later, in a haze. Clarke wasn't at the door with the other leaders of the Sky People when the grounders left, and Lexa couldn't see her anywhere. As the minutes passed and she couldn't find any legit reason to delay their leaving any longer, she started to fear that she really would have to leave without even seeing Clarke again. It was unrealistic to think that it would fix anything, it would at best be few looks and meaningless sentences exchanged, but the thought of leaving without at least that was worse than the alternative.

Clarke was there, though, watching them from afar, not in sight. She wanted to stay inside, and not see Lexa go away at all, but just few minutes before the departure, she couldn't stand the idea anymore, couldn't stand to miss what could very well be her last sight of Lexa. But for nothing in the world she would have come to her and say good-bye. It was more than she could take. Just watching her was making her wanna run to the girl and hold on to her. How could she let that king of feelings happen when since she got back, she had been dead set on not letting herself fall for Lexa? How had she let the other girl get under her skin so much that seeing her leave hurt as much as the first time?  
She would never be back. Clarke had seen the legions of silver-eyed, if only in dream. Nothing would stop them except Alie's destruction, not Lexa, not her people, not the defenses they would build. She could promise away, like she had ever kept her word to Clarke, but she was walking –well, riding- to her death. And Clarke couldn't stand to let her leave, and couldn't stand to see her leave, and couldn't stand not to either. So she was watching, torn between the will to do anything she could think of to make her stay, and the will to just go away, wait for Lexa to be gone, trying to hate her for all that she did.  
She didn't show herself, stayed where she was until the Grounders team finally turned to the forest, surrounding Lexa, who turned back one last time, and Clarke knew that the Commander was looking for her. She stayed still anyway.

And so Lexa left and Clarke stayed.


	19. Chapter 19

The first nights were the worst.

All the shadows, with their bright eyes, screaming on the walls. All mixed up, they were Archers, Grounders, Mountain Men, of all ages. And all of their silvered eyes were aimed at her, their bloody mouths opened on shrieks of pain, and they all cried blood, and they were all accusing her.

She woke up in the dead of night, and looked everywhere around her, before remembering that she was alone. Lexa was not somewhere in the room, she wouldn't raise her calm face at Clarke, she wouldn't tell her that she was safe. She wouldn't either help her to go back to sleep by talking to her, nor would she be there to wake her up when she would start dreaming again. No, she was alone, and it was dark and cold around her, and she would eventually fall back asleep and it would begin again. Or she would just shiver in her bed until morning, waiting for the light like a terrified child, unable to get those images out of her mind. She'd stay curled up, barely daring to open her eyes, as if her victims could really be next to her, just waiting for her to see them, so she'd know exactly what happens before they take revenge. She knew it was crazy, and that at the minute the sun would rise, those fears would completely go away, but as the camp slept in darkness and silence, there was nothing she could think that put her mind at ease. Reason, logic, weren't working, and the only thing she could do to stop herself from completely panicking was to stay completely still, in fetal position, as tensed as if she was holding for her life, her eyes desperately closed. If Lexa was there, nothing would be the same. If Lexa had been there, she wouldn't have let her dream that dream to the end to begin with, she would have woke her up and stayed close, and there would have been no reason to be afraid. She wouldn't be alone. Lexa's quiet presence would have made the night bearable.

But the Commander was gone, and Clarke was alone. She knew that Lexa would never come back. What she didn't know was how long she would stand those kind of nights. Or what she would do when she couldn't take one more. The headaches that announced Alie's dreams haden't come back –yet- and the nightmares she had were only that, nightmares, but it was way enough to wear her out. To make her fear sundown every day. Although it was not like the days were so much better, but at least, there were real, tangibles problems and real reasons to be afraid, not imaginary ghosts haunting her. It was the weirdest part, how every morning and day she couldn't even figure out why those obviously ridiculous thoughts scared her so much, but every time that she had to go to sleep, no matter how braver she felt in the day, she was no better than the previous night. Just a miserable kid who's afraid of the dark.

On the third night, she was awoken not by a nightmare, but by an intense pain that she recognized immediately. It was the nauseating headache that she first had in the desert, when she was trying to get to the dropship, then those two evenings before Alie's dreams. It was an awful pressure right above her eyes, seemed like tentacles of pain were taking over all of her head. If it was like the other times, she had few hours before the dream; but there was no way she'd fall asleep now, not knowing that this was going to happen. She wasn't either gonna stand that kind of pain for hours, though.

Her heart started racing as she was only considering to open her eyes. She hadn't made a move yet, but the idea of getting up was enough to make her tremble. No matter how long she kept telling herself that this was completely idiotic, she couldn't resolve to open her eyes. Until the pain worsened and she let out an involuntary whimper, that was. She couldn't go on like this anymore, she thought; she needed to get her hands on something that would numb the pain, to at least make it bearable. Alie's dreams were bad enough, but that was torture. If only… She had that thought so many times that it was practically thinking itself on its own by now – if only Lexa was there. She would have –long ago- barged into the infirmary to get her something, or got a healer at any time of the night. It was pathetic to miss her that much, to need her like that. And even more pathetic was the fact that Clarke didn't realize, until the Commander was gone, how much she had done for her. She had been there at all time, and it took her absence to make Clarke realize it. But Lexa was gone, gone forever this time, and she wasn't gonna ask for a baby-sitter among her own people to replace her. Still, she wasn't making it on her own. It was as simple as that. Everyone had its limits, a point where you just couldn't carry on, no matter how much you needed to. And she was reaching it.

Also, right now, the pain was about to make her sick for good, and she just had the time to get out of bed –to almost fall of it- before starting to retch. She vomited all that she possibly could, and after her stomach emptied itself, she kept spitting bile that burn her throat on its way. It took almost five full minutes before she was able to grope for the switch light, panting.

"-Oh, great," she managed to groan, swiping tears from her face. That really was the only thing missing to the picture, having to clean that up in the middle on the night, with that thudding pain still present, and the small electric light that had about zero reassuring power. Throwing up had made her snivel, and she wiped the tears up in a swift move, trembling from head to toes. Her hand came back covered of blood.

She stared at it blankly for few seconds, before truly realizing, and only then she got scared. She only had a nosebleed, she understood quickly, which was weird anyway, but not dangerous – no one ever heard about someone bleeding to death because of a nosebleed, after all. Still, she felt terrible, weak and sick, in pain and scared, so much that she actually thought of sending one of the birds to get her mother. That was a fine leader that the Archers had, she thought bitterly, a true warrior, really, whose first reaction when she was sick was to call her mommy! She wouldn't, of course, the thought had just been an old reflex from when she was a child. Instead, she went to the small bathroom –the only advantage she could see in the fact that she was sleeping in one of the Arch's room instead of Lexa's tent was the bathroom that came with it- to get what she needed to clean up. She was shivering, and wasn't certain that the cold was responsible.

Jackson was the only one from medical staff in the infirmary when she made it there, which was a relief. She only told him about the headache, keeping the rest and the real intensity of it to herself, just saying that she couldn't sleep because of it. Medical supplies weren't as much as a problem as it had been, since they send teams to both Mount Weather and the sections of the Arch they had found, to collect all that could be useful, and so giving her few painkillers wasn't an issue. He recommended her to not take it all, just one pill and another at least five hours later if necessary, and she assured him she would do as he said.

She took them all before she was even back to her room.

She slept through the all night without a single dream – not even a normal one, just a black hole of unconsciousness- and even though waking up the next morning was something of a challenge, she hadn't felt that fine in days.

She understood why it worked so well when the next day, she sneaked in the infirmary, on the pretext to talk to her mother, but really just to check what exactly Jackson gave her. The pain had seriously messed up her mind at the time, she thought, to make her not even think of verifying what it was before taking the three pill at once. He hadn't been cheap with her; the main ingredient in those pills was morphine, on a light form. She must have looked really terrible for him to give her something that strong. And she had been really careless to take so many. Yet, she took a small box with her when she left the infirmary; she clearly wasn't done with Alie's dreams, and if this could avoid them to her, she needed it.

That day, for the first time since the Grounder team had left, the wind and snow calmed down a little, allowing the new long distance radios to function better, and the War Council was able to finally reach Lexa's team. At first, there was what looked like a fight, and they understood few seconds later that two of the grounders were arguing about the proper way to get the radio working. Thankfully, the Commander shut them down and got the radio herself quick enough.

"-Commander, what's your position? Have you reached the closest Wasteland yet?" On their side, it was Bellamy who took the radio, after Raven managed to reestablish the communication.

"-The snow slowed us down, but we are approaching. We crossed two deserted villages on our way, though. No signs of life, but no bodies either, nothing that would indicate a fight.

-No one hostile?

-No one at all. Your science people found something, buried under the snow and the ground. A sort of silvered river that seems to be leading to the Wastelands. Its composition seems to be similar to the brainwashing poisons, or so they say.

-Do you think the missing villagers have been poisoned by this?"

Before Lexa answered, Octavia had come closer, to ask some questions of her own: "-Is it safe to be close to that river? If it really did brainwashed your people, it can do the same to your team.

-We're being extremely careful. Those villagers are a biggest threat to our safety, right now. Do you have any news of the South Nation or the Boat People?

-Not yet. But with all the snow and the quasi-tempest there was, the messengers had been slowed too, I guess.

-Probably. We crossed the Mist Clan yesterday, they should arrive to your camp soon. No sign of the Overseas Men? No attacks, anything? Are all the ones who had been poisoned still all right?"

Clarke wondered if she should say something. She wouldn't in front of anyone else, but should she inform her mother, or Jackson, or Bellamy, of what had been going on? She didn't see how she could make them understand about her dreams, though. She was certain that Lexa would have wanted to be informed of what happened in the night, but Clarke didn't see the point of worrying her more than she probably already was. It wasn't like she could do anything, and she had enough to deal with anyway. She knew it was important, but after all, she was the only one who had those dreams. As long as it kept affecting only her, it wasn't necessary to talk about it, she decided.

"-None," Bellamy answered. "-And everyone is fine. Nothing on your side either?

-No. This is strange. After attacking so strongly, no enemy would just disappear like that.

-Maybe Alie wasn't expecting us to interfere in her plans, and she's just taking the time to strike back.

-Maybe. She will strike eventually. Are your warriors ready for that?

-As ready as they can be, considering that we don't know how exactly what we'll be up against. Can you still hear me? There is a weird echo in the radio.

-Not very well."

They heard some grounders shout, and a girl's voice calling Lexa's title. She told them to wait while she talked to the girl, in Trigedasleng, and seemed worried when she got back to English.

"-One of our scouts saw people not far from our position. We'll reach out to you once we know more about it.

-Wait. A lot of people? Is there any chance they're your villagers?

-We'll see."

Bellamy and Clarke looked at each other, and he seemed to get her concern.

"-Be careful, then. We still don't know what happened to the first science team.

-I always am. We'll let you know."

Then, there was a click, and the transmission was over. Everyone in the rooms seemed anxious, Clarke realized –they all knew that if Lexa was about to encounter an entire village of turned ones, consequences could be disastrous to them.

Her, she was only wondering whether this was the last time she heard Lexa's voice.

The grounder team's radio stayed silent after this.

…

The first days and nights of their travel, Lexa spent them almost entirely sleeping. It wasn't hard to do on a horse, granted that you wouldn't fall asleep so deeply that you would fall from it. Any warrior was used to do it. She had been so weary that for the first time in months, she did not dream. As a result, only two days after they left, she felt more energetic than she had been for the last ten days, like regenerated. As much as she had pretended that it wasn't that hard, staying awake for so long did take a toll on her.

On the second day after their departure, they came across a village, or rather the skeleton of one. The houses, tents, all the buildings were standing, unscathed, but there was no trace of anything alive, not even animals. Maybe even more scary, there was no trace of anything dead either. Even if the villagers had fled away, it would have left traces; but it just seemed like no one had ever been there. Almost like this was a false village, false woods put there only to mislead them. This was absurd, of course –this village was supposed to be there, it had been for years, but the complete absence of animal life was something she had never seen, except on the Wastelands. And it was even worst in the middle of the woods than it had been there.

At night, they stopped and established camp –if it had been only to her, she would have rode all day and night long, but the horsed needed rest, and it was dangerous to make them walk on snow in the dark anyway. As they took away enough snow to set enough tents for everyone –they could usually sleep directly on the ground, but with this weather, it would have been dangerous- they saw for the first time the silver river. Remembering what Clarke had said about the silvered eyes of Alie's partisans and the silvered color of her base, Lexa made all of the team back down, to find another place to set camp, and only few of them came back, in protective suits, with the sky scientists. Lexa had chosen the two who led the work on the antidote, Leal and Zeke, to accompany the expedition; they proved her right that night, as they carefully studied the river. It proved to be related to Alie's poisons, and if the villagers really had been turned, this was responsible. How exactly did it work, the two didn't know yet; it could have been by poisoning the water and everything that fed and grew around the river, or just by being there, as the cores of the Wastelands. The radio didn't seem to be working, which the skyers blamed the storm for. To Lexa and her warriors, it was merely a bad weather, but the two Sky people insisted that it clearly was a storm.

The third evening, they encountered the Mist clan, on their way to Camp Jaha. The warrior Eris had taken lead of the clan since Derna's disappearance, which was what she had wanted, according to what Clarke said; by his side when he bowed to Lexa was Shaïra, who from Derna's second became Eris's. Even though she ordered him to get to Camp Jaha as soon as possible, as planned, Eris insisted for her to take few of his finest warriors with her, and so her team became way larger than the group that left the Sky people camp few days earlier.

Among the warriors Eris chose to go with her, there was Shaïra, much to Lexa's discomfort. Not that she doubted her fighting abilities, nor her loyalty; but she couldn't shake some kind of guilt about her, since Clarke threw her name at her. Although, she thought, not really her name. She had only mentioned Jak's sister. Maybe she didn't know more, and maybe she would find out more if Shaïra was to get to Camp Jaha and meet her. That was what made her change her mind; she'd rather have Shaïra with her in this expedition than have her talking to Clarke and make it possible for the Sky Princess to figure out more than she now knew. She realized only later that she was reacting like her thing with Shaïra had been wrong to Clarke somehow, which was ridiculous. It wasn't like she… She didn't owe Clarke anything on that matter, clearly. They weren't…

And there she was again, preoccupied only by Clarke's thought, when she had so more important things to be concerned about. Would she ever stop this? All that she had done to the Sky princess since they met was methodically breaking her, mind and heart, and crushing hers in the process. No matter what Clarke had been feeling when Lexa left few days ago, she was better off without the Commander around. She would eventually let her own people give her the comfort she needed, and this was for the better. But, oh, those eyes full of tears and the way she clung at Lexa! Just the memory of this embrace was enough to make her chest hurt, to make her wanna go back and hold her and never, ever break free from her arms. She had been, maybe not ready to forgive Lexa, not at all, but ready to admit that she cared for her, and she had almost begged her not to go. And she did go, and left her again, when the first time had brought her both so much pain. Would they ever, ever have a chance? Or was pain, forever, the only thing that they could give each other?

This was what clouded Lexa's mind, as her horse was slowly progressing in the snow, on her way to whatever Alie had made of her lands.

The day after their encounter with Eris and his clan, the radio started making those weird crackling noises for the first time since they left, and she practically had to snap it from the hands of the warriors in charge of it. As she was talking to Bellamy, Shaïra came to her, asking to speak to her. If anything, she was trained as a second, and knew better that to bother Lexa with something unimportant while she was occupied, so this had to be.

"-What is it?" She asked in Triguedasleng, after telling Bellamy to wait.

"-The scout might have found the villagers, Heda. Before the Wasteland, he saw a very large group of people. He said they weren't going anywhere, but just stayed where they were, immobile. He did not dare to approach them.

-Fine. We'll send a team to find out who they are and if they are hostiles."

She ended the communication with Bellamy, which left her saddened. She knew that Clarke probably wasn't over her anger to her, but she had still hoped to hear her. Her feelings regarding Clarke were quite complicated, complicated by the things that happened, by their positions; but there was one that was overly simple, those last days: she missed her.

They didn't have to go that far to see the mysterious people; they were so many it would have been harder not to see them. They were, as the scout said, immobile, but at the moment they were in sight of Lexa –at the moment Lexa was in sight of them- they rose, all at once, and she felt the sting of fear. Not because of their number; if it came to that, she and her warriors had horses, and walking people wouldn't be hard to lose; but their move had had something very unnatural. A single move for dozens of people, as if they had been one single organism, and not a crowd. Or as if they had been controlled by one single entity, she thought. Had they been waiting for them, for anyone who would come this way? Or had been waiting specifically for her? They hadn't move before she was in sight, after all. And her picture was the first on Alie's list.

They were too many to be taken on, and even though there wasn't any proof that they were indeed Alie's creature, she ordered her team not to go near them. It did no good, in the end, since this weird crowd started to reach for them, and contrary to what she thought, they _were _faster than horses. So this was going to be a fight. Fine. It was only time, after all, to finally confront this enemy physically. She sent Maykl away with the two skyers, with orders, if she and her warriors were killed, to get back to Camp Jaha with them and inform their allies. She didn't think it would be needed, but the precaution had to be taken.

The turned ones weren't really fighting; they had no weapons, no method. They just ran and jumped at the warriors, trying to kill them with their bare hands and teeth, and had they been in equal number, it would have been soon over. But they were more than a hundred, and Lexa's unit around thirty. Even like that, it was around five kills for each warrior, which wasn't so much to ask.

When it really began, and that she was close enough to cut one's head off in one blow, she saw, with a shiver of fright, that Clarke had been right. They were the silver-eyed that she saw in her dreams.

Worst thing that she got by the end of the fight was a bite on her arm –one of them got through her sleeve, all the way to the flesh, as she was disengaging her sword from another one's body. They had lost only two warriors, submerged by too many of the turned ones at a time, she saw with relief, and all the wounds were only superficial, mostly bites and bruises. Her warriors got away from the piles of bodies, but she stayed watching, watching all of those people that had been under her protection. They were only villagers, not even warriors; it showed at their clothes. There were children who, even by her standards, would have been too young to fight, and eldest as well. She got closer of one of the bodies, a man who still carried a weapon. He didn't even tried to use it; whatever the poison did to them, it erased everything from their minds, to let them no better than animals; worse, even. No animal would attack for no reason.

_Alie._

Human or not, alive or not, she would pay.

She got back up in one quick move when she heard her warriors scream her title, from where they were standing. All around her, the silvered river was getting out of the ground, to recover the bodies –and blocking her way out of the massacre. Unless she was ready to get through the silver liquid, but that was something she wouldn't even try. She stayed completely immobile, surrounded by the silver enveloping the bodies, her sword on her hand. Finally, it just went back under the grounds, like sucked by it, leaving the dead villagers around her as they were before, and for a second, nothing moved.

After that, she was suddenly grabbed by behind, and before she could even defend herself, she felt teeth penetrating her neck, as, in front of her eyes, all the dead villagers started to rise. She managed to hit the one behind her strong enough to make him let go of her, and turned to face him, to kill him once more as he tried to reach her again, his teeth and mouth all bloody. He was the only one she succeeded to kill, though; she was completely surrounded, and as she was about to hit the next one, a woman caught her arm with terrifying strength, someone else blocked her other arm, and few of them forced her to the ground, restraining all of her moves. Her legs and arms were the most exposed parts of her body, and like animals fighting over a bone, they started to bite and scratch.

With a furious move, she managed to freed one of her arms, but only for a second before two of them grabbed it again, and as one was holding it, the second bit her hand with all of his strength, stopped only to spit a piece of flesh and planted its teeth in her skin again.

A tall and heavy man who might have been a healer, since he was still carrying the kind of bag they used to transport all their potions, pushed all of the turned ones on his way to come crashing on her chest, kneeling above her and she could feel something crack when his knees connected with her body. He took her head in his hands, and, with a completely expressionless face, slammed it against the ground, once, twice, three times before letting go of her for a second. The snow, even trampled in the fight, had amortized the blows, but not enough for Lexa to stay fully conscious; she barely felt his hands around her neck when he started to crush it between his abnormally strong hands.

Suddenly, there was light around her, instead of the shadows casted by all of the villagers, gathered around her like predators around a fallen deer, and the man above her was thrown away by a mace; as everything started to get blurry, she could feel someone dragging her away, a voice telling her to keep breathing, a light touch on her face.

She was passing out, she realized suddenly, and she brutally freed herself from the arms that were surrounding her; she sat down, and pain exploded in her chest as she desperately tried to get some air without coughing to asphyxia. Shaïra –it was Shaïra- kneeled next to her, enjoined her to breath slowly, calmly –she was right, but breathing calmly after almost passing out from being strangled wasn't the easiest thing to do. There was a trail of blood on the snow, hers, she realized, that she left when Shaïra had get her out of the fight; maybe she did pass out for a while, for they were further away than she thought.

When she was able to see clearly again, she watched at the fight still going on, to see that it wasn't going as well as the first time. All the villagers were stronger after their resurrection, and her warriors were struggling with the numbers. She tried to get up, but her legs wouldn't stand her weight yet, and she felt so lightheaded that she thought she might faint if she insisted. Still, she couldn't let her warriors get killed while comfortably watching from afar.

"-Heda, you can't go back, you're losing too much blood." Shaïra protested when Lexa managed to get back on her two feet. She had lost her sword, probably when they first pinned her to the ground, or when they started chewing her like she was some piece of meat. Now that she could think clearly again, she felt enraged. She was the Heda of fourteen clans, the greatest Commander of their time, the Peacemaker, creator and leader of the Coalition; she was not to be beaten by the human puppets of a metal machine hidden somewhere in the basement of an island!

"-Give me your sword.

-Heda…

-I said give me your sword!"

Shaïra submissively lowered her head, before unsheathing and landing Lexa her own sword. The girl still had another blade on her, as many warriors, so she wouldn't be weaponless. The blade was covered of fresh blood already drying, and the sword was lighter than Lexa's, but she would accommodate.

The villagers were stronger, but she was too, in full battle mode; and the one time she was send to the ground again, she rolled back on her feet, slayed the one next to her and the one who made her fall in once circular move, before splitting another in two to save one of the Mist warriors. As they were fighting, the silver river emerged again, and reanimated some of the villagers, but all those who lost part or all of their arms or legs stayed mutilated; and those whose head had been cut off or destroyed stayed dead. She screamed to her warriors to go for the heads, and every time the silver came off the ground, it regenerated less and less villagers; in the end, after more than an hour of fight, they finally were alone in the forest, only surrounded by pieces of corpse everywhere.

They had lost only fifteen warriors, which was way less than she feared, and she thought gratefully to Eris. Without those he left with her, it might have gone an all different way. By the time it was over, her muscles were sore, her body weakened by the loss of blood –she didn't have any serious or really deep injuries, but so many light ones that she was still bleeding a lot- and all the energy that she got back from her two days of horse-sleep had vanished, leaving her shaking. She didn't let it show, though, and led her warrior through the amount if corpses to make sure they all were dead for good, this time, and send two of them get Maykl, Leal and Zeke back. Their healer had been killed, and Zeke, as a medical student back in the Arch, was promoted healer of the expedition. At first, Lexa thought he was going to faint or throw up at the sight of the wounds and the blood –it was fortunate that he didn't have to see the cadavers, she told herself- but he eventually got it together and started to help those who were the most seriously hurt.

Before that, though, and even with the wounded ones, the group still went far away from the place of the battle to set camp, none of them willing to stay around, even if the villagers weren't gonna stand back this time. As Zeke was taking care of the warriors, Lexa got in her tent, posting Maykl before the opening, and let herself fall on the camp-bed. She'd go back out in a while, when the kid would be done with the seriously wounded ones, and let him check on her own injuries, but for now, she just wanted to rest for a while. It didn't last long, though, because she realized that blood was soaking the fur where she was lying, much more blood than she thought; and when she got back up, everything started to spin around her. She exited the tent, immediately noticed by Shaïra –clearly, that girl had been a second too much time; she wouldn't get in her head that she wasn't Lexa's and didn't need to be shadowing her at all time- who came to her.

"-I'll get the healer, Heda.

-No. Some of the warriors need him more than I do," She answered, annoyed that her state was so obvious. Or maybe it was Shaïra that was particularly attentive, because Maykl didn't notice, yet he wasn't unobservant.

"-Then let me at least help. I'm no healer, but I can take care of injuries all the same."

She gave up, too tired to argue –this was best anyway; she wouldn't be of much use if she had to spend the next days recovering from blood loss.

She took one by one the pieces of her armor away, which went easily, while Shaïra went to Zeke to get medical furniture, then her shirt, which was harder, since on some of the wounds, blood had dried, and she had to rip the cloth from her skin. She had a dark and large bruise on her ribcage, and by the pain every time she took a breath, she was practically certain that she had at least one broken rib. Most of the wounds weren't even bleeding anymore, she saw, but the ones who were seemed deep enough; the one on her neck was one of those, as were several on her legs, and one on her left arm –that last one might have touched an important vein, she thought; blood kept pouring as much even an hour after.

It was all gonna leave disgusting scars, she thought. Being scarred wasn't such a problem; she had her share, like any warrior, but the idea of carrying the marks of human teeth all over her skin was repulsive. She was pretty sure it wouldn't be at Clarke's liking either. Although, to think that Clarke was even going to have the occasion to see this proved than blood loss was really starting to cloud her thoughts. Like the Sky Princess even wanted to find herself in any situation implicating to see Lexa's skin. She made quite clear that this was the last thing she had in mind.

Taking her boots off was easy, but the process of removing her pants made her wince more than once, every time she had to rip it off a wound. Those on her legs were the worst, she noticed; there was one in particular, above the knee, in the inside of her thigh, that looked particularly gross. The one who did that seemed to have tried several times to get a good grip, and as a result, there was actually several wounds above each other, several ranks of teeth printed in her flesh, and streaks of dark blood still dripping.

Shaïra's eyes filled with worry when she reentered the tent, and Lexa thought that she was impressed by the number and the looks of her injuries; but the girl was mostly looking at her neck. Lexa couldn't see how it looked, but it was hurting as much as her ribs, maybe more, every time she breathed, so she supposed it was as bruised.

Some of the bites just needed to be cleaned, but Shaïra had to tie tight bandages around most of them to stop the bleeding, and stitch the worst of them; for the three worsts, on Lexa's left arm, thigh and neck, she sent for Zeke.

"-You should be very careful with this one," He said, once he was done with the multiple bites on her leg. "-The skin's tensed because of all the stitches, it could reopen very easily. Same on your arm, it's a dangerous spot."

She just nodded. She felt even sleepier than during her time in Camp Jaha, and she only wanted the two of them gone. He then started to examine the wound on her neck, the first bite of the fight; and she couldn't help but wince when, to move her head to get a better look, he placed his hand to the back of her head. He let go immediately.

"-Did that hurt? Have you been hit on the head?

-Yes.

-Ah, hum, OK, we should check that, then. I'll just take care of this bite and…"

He cleaned and stitched the last wound –even though it wasn't, from very far, the worst thing she had to endure, she was still glad it was over; the feel of the needle was far from pleasant – and went behind her to look at her head.

"-Ok, so, there's no wound. I'm going to press against your head, tell me when it start hurting."

He started, very lightly, more brushing than pressing, but she still felt an intense sting of pain when his fingers reach the contusion.

"-Do you feel any vertigo, or nausea?

-Not really.

-Does that mean a little or not at all? It's important, really.

-Maybe a little vertigo. But it probably is the blood loss.

-Yeah, it's possible too. The pain, is it just when I touch it, or more like a migraine? How would you describe it, localized, sharp?

-Localized where it hit the ground, and sharp, like any wound when you touch it.

-Ok… Did you lost consciousness when it happened?

-She did, for two or three minutes, but that was after the head blow, when he tried to strangle her.

-Ah, ok. They didn't take it easy on you. Well, let me just… Oh, wow.

-What?

-Nothing, it's just that scar on your back… It must have been a really serious injury, right?

-Just do what you're here for.

-Hum, yeah. Sorry. Ok, look at me, please."

He went back in front of her, and for a while, checked everything he could about her eyes, from make her follow moves to send light directly in it.

"-Well, you don't seem to have anything more than a bump, thankfully –a big painful one, but that's still better than a concussion. About your neck, it's probably gonna swell a lot, so you may want to sleep more sitting than laying, it'll be easier to breathe. And be careful with those stitches, really. Try to avoid brutal moves, and use your hand as little as you can. You were lucky that no tendon or articulation was touched, but it'll have a hard time cicatrizing if you move it. Also, you shouldn't be sleeping alone tonight. You may have troubles breathing, or I could be wrong about your head. Someone should wake you up every two hours or so, just to make sure that you still _can _wake up."

Lexa didn't even have time to answer before Shaïra proposed herself to fulfill that role.

She almost rolled her eyes. Loyalty and dedication were good qualities, all right, but since the Mist girl was there, she couldn't do a move without her around. She accepted anyway –she didn't want her warriors to know about her being hurt, so that really left only Maykl and Shaïra to take that place. Zeke left, recommending her to send for him if she felt too much pain, or if she was getting nauseous, dizzy, if anything worsened.

"-Is there anything I can do, Heda? Do you want water or food?

-No. Just make yourself comfortable somewhere, and wake me up if anything happens.

-I will, Heda."

Her clothes were good to be thrown away, now, ripped and bloody, so she just put on a long tunic and loose pants that didn't press on her wounds, got the fur ruined by her blood out of the bed –and didn't even have to look for her new one, since Shaïra was already handing her one- and fell asleep almost instantaneously.

She had a weird dream, where she was walking in a spring sunny forest, following the noise of a cascade; when she got to it, it was a lovely river, surrounded by tender green moss. The cascade was falling into a small pond, and on the bank, wearing a sky people white and green dress, there was Costia. She raised her head when Lexa arrived, on the other side of the pond, and smiled at her –that bright, warm smile that she had always reserved to Lexa. She was sitting, her legs in the water, playing with her long, dark braid.

"-What took you so long?" She asked, her eyes shining with amusement. Lexa's throat blocked as she watched the girl bathed in sunlight. She crossed the river, but as she reached the other side, Costia got her legs out of the pond and stepped back a little. Lexa approached her slowly, fearing that she would disappear if she rushed it, and finally sat next to her, not daring to do more, even if the desire to do so was making her trembling.

"-Are you really there?

-I always am there, aren't I?"

Lexa leaned to her, to kiss her where she had loved it so much, right at the junction of the shoulder and the neck. She smelled –the smell that her mind had forgot during those two years- she smelled like hot sand and summer, she smelled of love.

Costia let her kiss her but didn't respond, only watching her with sadness in her dark eyes.

"-What are you doing? You know it can't last." She said, softly.

"-I want you.

-Oh, Lexa-ain. You can't. You have to tell them what you saw."

Costia got up, and on that sight, the dream blurred and Lexa woke up, blenching, in the dark of the tent.

"-Shaïra?

-Yes, Heda?" Her voice was kind of sleepy, but of course she woke up the second Lexa did, even if the Commander hadn't made that much noise.

"-Who had the radio when the fight began?

-It… It was Rohan, of the Desert Clan."

Rohan had survived the battle, Lexa remembered with relief.

"-Good. Go get it, and if he doesn't have it anymore, find it."

She had, she realized, absolutely forgot about the radio, and the fact that she was supposed to keep the Sky people informed about the villagers. Granted, her mind had good reasons to be elsewhere; but now, they probably were thinking the worst. Even the two times when Shaïra woke her up, she just assured her that she was still all right, and went back to sleep without a second thought. She could have went through the all night without remembering this, if Costia… If she hadn't had this dream. It was very, very rare for her to dream of her that way. She had had numberless nightmares where she saw her body again and again, where she saw her get taken by the Ice soldiers, but dream of her alive… Almost never. It was both worse and better, less and more heartbreaking.

It turned out that Rohan still had the radio, had managed to preserve it during the battle, and Shaïra came back with it quickly. It took a while to Lexa to figure out how to initiate the communication, even if Raven had gave her long –very long- detailed explications.

When she succeeded, there was a second of crackling, and almost immediately, someone picked up at the other end of the transmission.

"-Commander?

-Raven.

-You're alive! We were seriously starting to plan your succession, here. What happened?

-We were under attack. Who's with you?

-Oh, are your people all right? There's just Octavia and Wick right now. We took turns with the radio, you know, to make sure we wouldn't miss your call. Who attacked you? The people you saw earlier? Who were they?

-Maybe send for the rest of the Council. There are things your leaders need to know.

-Yeah, or to make it shorter, you want Clarke to hear what you're gonna say.

-I would appreciate you to send for her, yes."

Damn Raven. Damn smart people.

"-Well, I did it the second the radio received the transmission.

-Good.

-I thought so. So, are your people ok? Have you lost many?

-Half of them.

-Half! How are you gonna…

-It won't happen again. We were taken aback.

-Was it Overseas Men? Or brainwashed villagers?

-I'll tell you all of that when the others are here.

-Ok…" Lexa could tell that Raven wasn't taking her answer particularly well, but she pretended not to notice. What they had seen on the plain where they fought wasn't gonna be easy to believe for the Sky people –not even for her people, really – but Clarke would know it was true, and the both of them could surely convince the others. By herself, through a long-distance talking device, it might be harder to make people believe that dead bodies rose again to keep killing.

She asked about the Mist Clan in the meantime, and learned that their scouts just reached Camp Jaha, the rest of the clan following one or two days behind. Raven asked her, after clearly going around it for a while, if she was all right, if she hadn't been hurt in the fight. She was a little surprised by the question, but in a good way.

"-I'm fine, thank you for your concern."

Shaïra, next to her, glanced at her with surprise, probably thinking that "fine" was something of an exaggeration. At the other end of the line, Raven mumbled something that Lexa interpreted like an embarrassed way of saying that she didn't care that much but was still glad that she was fine. Then, after few minutes, Raven left the radio to Wick, there was the noise of a quick discussion in the background, and she came back to talk to Lexa.

-Apparently, Clarke's not in her room…

-Where is she?

-I don't know right now, but don't worry, she could be anywhere… I mean anywhere safe! She's probably at the infirmary with Abby or something…

-In the middle of the night?

-All right, look, as soon as we find her, we'll contact you back, ok? Don't worry, really. She's surely just around the corner. She's just not in her room, it doesn't mean anything. We'll let you know…

-Wait! Be careful, all of you. In anyone not identified for sure tries to approach Camp Jaha, do anything to keep them out."

There was a silence in the radio, before Raven answered.

"-We'll do that. Be careful too."

The transmission was cut right after this, and Lexa stayed with the now silent radio in her hand. Raven was right, it didn't mean anything. Clarke could have just been needing some fresh air. Camp Jaha was the safer place she could be, after all; if anything happened, some guards, or even the birds, would have seen it. Yes. The birds would know where she was, and the Sky people would contact her soon.

Despite her attempts of reassurance, the rest of her night was filled with worry.


	20. Chapter 20

Clarke was one of the last to leave the Council room, after the transmission ended. At first, they had all stayed, expecting Lexa to contact them soon; as time passed, the radio stayed silence, and some of them started to try finding reasons why the team wasn't reaching to them, other reasons than the one everyone was thinking of. Almost four hours later, the radio finally received a transmission, and they all jumped at the sound, rushing to pick up. It was only another radio from inside the camp, and when they sat back down, without a word, they couldn't hide what they feared from each other anymore, no more that if they had said it out loud.

The sun went down the horizon, and as the room darkened, the sight of this silent radio became unbearable to Clarke. That was how it all ended, then: just that stupid useless device taunting them on the table, and she'd probably never even know for sure if Lexa had been killed, captured, or turned.

She would have stayed, all night, as long as it would have taken, but the sudden vision, as clear as if she had really seen it, of a silver eyed Lexa, imposed itself to her mind. What it would mean, how things would be without her, it all rushed at her in a handful of seconds and she brutally got up, unable to keep waiting, to keep staring at that radio as if she could change anything by wanting it hard enough. It didn't matter, how much she wanted things, how much she needed them to go a certain way; she was powerless, as she had been when they floated her father, when she felt Finn die against her; they were both dead, as were so many of her friends, as most of the population of the Arch, and the villagers of TonDC, and…

And Lexa.

When Raven asked her where she was going, she mumbled something about needing some air, and barely stopped herself from running out of the room.

Maybe Lexa wasn't dead –yet. That was the thing; even if the Commander was still alive by now –which was becoming more and more unlikely with every minute passing- it was only a matter of time before she wasn't anymore. And then, it would all come crumbling down. The Coalition was held together by her leadership, and there was all the reasons in the world to think that it wouldn't last without her; most of the clans would leave and try to fight this war on their own, for the ones that wouldn't seize the first occasion to take revenge on Sky people; and they would all be fighting stupid civil wars until the moment they would all be wiped out by Alie.

It was still snowing outside, but Clarke wasn't really cold. She was wearing a grounder coat, after all, the one Lexa gave her. A very fine one, she had realized later, almost a piece of art that had surely required a lot of work. She couldn't remember if she thanked Lexa at the time. Probably not.

But no matter how good that coat was to stop the cold of the wind and the snow, there was one kind of cold it couldn't help with. It wouldn't help tonight, when she would be in the dark, trembling in her room, alone this night and all the others to come.

She wouldn't stand another night of loneliness.

Bellamy had been sleeping for barely an hour when the brutal knocks on his door woke him up. The first instant, he didn't understand what had made him snap out of sleep, until another salvo of knocks landed on the metal of his door. By the time he got out of his bed and put on a black leather jacket over his T-shirt, there had already been new noisy knocks, even though he hadn't been that slow.

He opened to find Clarke standing in front of him, her hand still at mid-air, probably ready to knock some more.  
She had snow not yet melted all over her hair and clothes, glinting under the electrical light of the hallway, and she stood there, as she let her hand fall back to her side –without unclenching her fist, he noticed.

"-What's wrong?" He asked, for she really didn't look like someone bearing good news. "-Is there news from the expedition?"

"-No," She answered in a low voice. Then, she stayed silent, looking at him like she didn't know what to say or do, even though she was the one who had been so determined to talk to him just seconds ago. "-Can I come in?

-Of course." He took a step on the side to let her enter the room, and close the door behind her at her request. When he turned back to her, she stood in the middle of the room, avoiding eye contact.

"-What's going on? Are you alright?

-I'm cold.

-I bet you are. This weather is terrible…" He stopped, seeing her shake her head at his words.

-Not that kind of cold."

She planted her blue look in his eyes, and he didn't say anything, feeling that whatever she meant, she needed to get it out, and was about to. His heart started to accelerate as they stared at each other, separated by only few feet. She never looked at him that way before.

"-I want you to warm me up."

There was probably no way for blood to really start boiling in someone's veins, but as he realized what she just said, he could have sworn that his was. Clarke hadn't broke their eye contact, and she was the first to take a step closer. He reached for her as soon as she did, and in the second, she pulled him in a deep kiss.

He closed his arms around her, eager to feel her body, and soon enough, she stopped clinging to him to remove her coat. This was the last chance for him to stop, he thought; if he was to touch her for real, to feel her skin under his hands, to keep kissing her, there was no way he could stop himself.

"-Clarke, are you…

-Don't even ask."

And she was back in his arms, on his lips, her body pressed against his, and he definitely didn't ask.

They didn't stay standing very long; she had took his shirt away first, and, as his skin shivered with every one of her touch, got her own shirt join her coat on the floor. A mutter of appreciation came out of her lips when he lifted her off the ground and he felt her legs cross in his back, sending waves of electricity along his body.

He was on top, when she first came, and she held on to him, and he never knew that her pressing her face in his neck wasn't about being close, but mainly about not letting him see that she was crying. Crying because even though she wasn't having nightmares right now, even if she wasn't alone and terrified, she felt lonelier than ever. Because – and the realization was shattering what was left of her heart – he wasn't the one she wanted.

But the only one she really wanted to be held by, the one she wanted to feel close to her, this one was gone and he was all she had. So once he was over, she let him some time, and they did it again. And again.

She woke up on a nightmare one more time, and Bellamy, pressed against her back, his legs entangled with her, was holding her, nicely, telling her that it was just a dream, that she was safe. Maybe she had cried or screamed, and woke him up. For some reason, his reassurances only filled her with disgust –for herself.

"-No," she interrupted him, when he said that she was ok. "-I'm a mess."

He stopped talking and she felt him brush a kiss in her hair. It managed to move her, through the layers of self-hate.

"-I think we all are, at this point," He said sadly. "-We'll get through this, Clarke. I'm not sure how, but we will. Together."

She turned in the bed to face him, and the look he gave her was enough to make her cry again, even if she hated herself for it, for being so weak over and over again. It only made him even more concerned, and as much as she despised herself for using him that way, she let him hold her and comfort her until she went back to sleep.

She slipped away as it was still dark, softly disengaging herself from his embrace, without waking him up. He was sleeping deeply, and if he felt anything, it didn't show. As she looked at him before leaving, she remembered few of Lexa's words, the night when she first woke up in Camp Jaha. _I see my people, and I know they would not be alive without all I did. _Was that true of Bellamy? Probably; if TonDc had been evacuated, he would surely have been captured –harvested- by the Mountain Men. Instead of this, he was sleeping in the comfort of this room, peaceful for the time, maybe even happy. Because of what she did, because she let innocent people die.

"-I'm sorry," She muttered to him. Maybe she wasn't really talking to him; maybe she was hoping that somehow, she could be heard by all of those she wronged. It wasn't much, but mourning them was all that she could do for them, by now. On the other hand, there were still a lot of people outside she could do right by.

The dead are gone and the living are hungry.

The first time she heard that sentence, she thought it might be the most insensitive thing she ever heard. A proof that the Commander was indeed heartless, uncaring. It was the complete other way around, she realized now. She was protecting herself with that truth, precisely because she cared –so much. They both did.

Maybe Lexa was gone too. But Clarke had hungry livings to feed.

In the Council room, she was greeted by Octavia, possibly the last person she would have want to see, considering where she just came from.

"-Clarke! Where were you?

-In my room," she answered automatically, which she regretted as soon as she heard herself say it. It was the first place they would have looked if they had been looking for her, as Octavia's reaction let her think, thus the first place where they knew for sure she wasn't.

-Hum, no, you weren't. We send birds for you.

-Well, I might have been outside when they came.

-Every time?

-Obviously yes, Octavia, otherwise we would have met. Why did you send for me?

-Lexa has contacted us few hours ago. She wanted to speak with you.

-She's alive?

-She was at that time. As we thought, they had to fight the villagers. She's not… Are you ok?

-Yes. Why… Did she say anything about…

-Raven said that she was waiting for you to be there before spitting out what happened. Apparently, she was worried not to know where you were.

-_She _was worried!

-Ok, Clarke, you should sit. You look like…

-When is she supposed to contact us back?

-We're the ones calling, this time.

-What? That's stupid, she would have to let her radio turned on indefinitely, she doesn't have unlimited batteries!

-Well, she wanted to be warned as soon as you would be back. Told you, she was worrying about you. For a change.

-What… Ugh, whatever, gimme that radio. And send the birds for the rest of the Council."

Her hands were trembling so much that turn the radio on became a complicated task, and Octavia's look above her shoulder wasn't making it any easier. She had been hanging on to hope for hours, but now, the idea of Lexa being alive –being alright, ready to pick up the call- seemed more ethereal than the weirdest of her nightmares.

And then, after few seconds of excruciating wait, she heard the recognizable clicking at the other end of the line, and Lexa's voice rose from the little black device.

« -Raven ?

-Lexa, it's me.

-Clarke!" It was impossible to miss the emotion in her voice. The Commander took a pause, and when she spoke again, her voice was more controlled, she had her usual calm tone, but Clarke had heard her reaction anyway. "-Where were you ?

-Can't someone take a walk without it being a national matter?" She answered, making it sound slightly irritated. Maybe she should have, considering what she was hiding, but for once, she didn't feel so terrible. She even felt… Maybe kind of good. Grateful, at least. "-Question is where were you? Why didn't you contact us sooner? We all thought…

-I know. We were attacked, hence the delay.

-Are you… Is your team all right?

-We lost men, but the survivors are fine. Is everyone around?

-Not yet, they're coming. Just Octavia, you and I for now. We'll put you on speakerphone so everyone can hear you. The ones who attacked you… Were they the villagers? Were they really…

-Yes. Clarke, you were right. Your dreams were telling the truth. Have you told anyone else about it? Have you had others?

-Oh, wait. They were brainwashed? Their eyes…

-Silver-eyed, as you dreamed. But that is not all. We have seen things that might be hard to believe, and I need you to help me convince your people when I tell them. If you could tell them about your…

-We've talked about this, there's no way I'm convincing anyone with that.

-But you now have proof that it is real. I've seen it.

-No. Whatever it is that you saw, it can't be weirder that what we already know, and I'll back you up, but I cant… I can't."

There was a pause on the line, and she heard Lexa breathe in. It sounded strange, laborious, as if she couldn't get enough air in one breath.

"-Are you all right? Your voice sounds weird." It was true; she didn't notice at first, but Lexa's voice was a little hoarse, more low-pitched that usual. The answer came as a mumble: "-I have a cold."

Against all expectations, Clarke felt a smile creep on her face.

"-And you said Sky people would never make it through the winter.

-Did I say that, Clarke?

-You know you did. Don't let it get worse, though, you have enough on your plate without adding pneumonia. Is your healer still alive?

-He has been killed, but yours, Zeke, is well and efficient. And how have you been?

-I haven't had other –you know. I've, I've been fine.

-Can I tell you something interesting about people's voices? It tends to get higher when they are lying.

-And yet I've never heard yours do that." Clarke replied defensively. Before scolding herself for talking to Lexa that way, when she knew she would regret it. The Commander didn't take it badly, though.

-I don't lie to you, Clarke. I never have.

-You just did, Lexa. A cold? Funny idea, I'll give that to you, but come on. You've been living on those lands your entire life, I'm pretty sure you know how not to get sick at the first colds of winter.

-Fine. Why don't you tell me how you really are, and I'll do the same?

-You're never gonna make it easy, are you?

-Right back at you. I am merely asking you how you're doing.

-All right. But you go first.

-It's only contusions. One of the villagers tried to strangle me, and it's a little swollen. Nothing serious.

-Have you…" Clarke ignored the fear creeping back and the sudden anger she felt at the idea of anyone hurting Lexa. "-Have you had it checked by Zeke? Has he looked for internal damages?

-And that is exactly why I did not want to tell you. He did check, and it is just bruises. You really have nothing to be worried about.

-What else is there that you kept from me? Lexa, if you're hurt…

-I am not. I have been bitten a few times, and this is it.

-Oh, you were right. People's voice does go higher when they're lying.

-All right. Two broken ribs."

Clarke faltered as her relief at hearing Lexa on the radio faded. This was only a reprieve, she remembered; the Commander wasn't dead, this time, but it didn't change anything. If it wasn't now, it would be soon enough. The radio would stay silent forever, or some other grounder would contact them to tell them about her death, and it would all be over.

"-It's your turn, now," Lexa reminded her, softly. Clarke looked at Octavia, who stood by the door, pretending that she wasn't trying to hear their exchange.

"-Octavia, can you go outside to see who's already here? Come back to tell me once the all Council's arrived."

The girl made clear that she wasn't fooled and knew that Clarke was only asking this to get rid of her, but complied anyway.

"-Clarke? I've told you the truth, will you…

-I have nightmares every time I close my eyes. I keep dreaming of everyone I've killed, and when I wake up, I'm scared and alone and it's not getting any better. And it won't get any better, because you left again, you went away to die, and whatever you think, you'll never be back! Is that enough truth for you? Cause if not, I can…

-That is not the truth, Clarke. I am coming back.

-How can you say that? You're already…

-I'm already nothing. I am fine, I have warriors with me, and the silver-eyed are the ones in danger if we are to meet again.

-There are thousands of them, and more every day. Maybe you've never been in a war that you couldn't win, but this you can't. Not like that, not on your own.

-Everyone's there," Octavia informed her, reentering the room before Lexa could answer.

"-I put you on speakerphone, Lexa. That means that everyone in the room will hear you at the same time.

-Fine. But we are not done."

There was the Sky People of the War Council, as well as the Chiefs of the clans, all of them trying to fit in the Council room, waiting for the Commander's information on the situation. She explained what happened, the attack of the silver-eyed, and how they had been quickly defeated by her team, which at first was a relief to all of the attendants. But then she kept talking, describing the way the silvery river had submerged the ground. When she got to the point where she told them about the dead silver-eyed rising again, something clicked in Clarke's mind, and for an instant, she remembered, more clearly than anything she ever knew, how all of this fitted together. What Thelonius Jaha had meant by being reborn, what the City of Lights really was, what Alie really was doing. In less than a second, it had slipped away from her, and had been nothing else than the shadow of a memory. It left her not even listening to the rest of the Council, desperately trying to hold on to these memories, with no result. It had faded away like a dream in the morning, leaving just a feeling –and sights of silver.

Lexa had been right about needing help to convince everyone that what she saw was real, Clarke realized when she got back to reality. She wasn't sure she could bring that help, though; what was she supposed to say? "She's right, it does look like something I might have seen in a dream that I don't even remember" didn't seem like an amazing point.

Then a thought struck her. Jaha's hand, completely healed after she shot him. Her own gunshot wound to the knee. Was that what happened? Had they both been healed by the silver? Mostly… Could Jaha still be alive? No, Lexa said that the turned ones killed by head wounds stayed dead even after the silver resuscitated the others. And maybe it only worked on the silver-eyed, and not all turned ones. But…

Bellamy was talking to her, but she didn't catch a word he was saying. He didn't seem overly convinced by Lexa's story, though. She had to speak above the sound level to make herself heard, which made her briefly think that they needed a system to determine whose turn it was to speak, because it was near to impossible to draw the attention she needed.

"-The Commander is telling the truth. I have seen Alie's soldiers heal bleeding wounds in seconds.

-I cannot stay here when my people are being threatened by those silver-eyed abominations!" One of the Grounder chief –Tangas, of the Cave people- shouted, approved by few of the others chiefs. What Lexa told them, Clarke couldn't understand precisely, but her tone and the reactions of the leaders were enough to tell her that they had just been reminded of their places. Still, one of them kept protesting, until Auri of the River clan intervened.

"-What did he just say?" She asked discreetly to Octavia, the only one of her people who knew enough Trigedasleng to understand.

"-That he's disrespecting both the Commander and the Sky Princess –seriously, that's your title, now?

-Not my choice, believe me. What else?

-Basically, that if he keeps dishonoring his own people by being insubordinate and insulting, things aren't gonna get nicely between them. I think you have a fan.

-Can't hurt."

Afterwards, after the Chiefs of the clans left the room, Clarke managed to talk privately to Lexa again, even though it took the removal of all of her friends as well. Bellamy in particular wanted to stay, and making him understand that she needed to talk to the Commander alone wasn't so easy.

"-Once you're done… Can we talk?" He asked, as he was already at the door.

Of course it would come. She had been asking for it, really. She had to straight things up between the both of them as soon as possible.

"-Yes. Wait for me in my room. I'll be quick."

He smiled to her before leaving, and she only felt the sting of guilt.

"-Everyone's gone, Lexa.

-Good. I have been talking with your people, Leal and Zeke. They say that we will soon reach the limit of the radio transmission. We will surely be able to keep you inform passed the first Wasteland –you will need to know if we succeed to neutralize it- but we will stop after that, to save the batteries.

-And when do you think you'll get there?

-Today, probably. It is getting really close, we would already be there if it wasn't for the snow and the silver-eyed."

Clarke barely managed to hold back an exclamation –was it going to be like that every time? Would she have to fear it would be the last time, every time she spoke to Lexa?

Despite her attempt to be silent, the other girl must have heard her.

"-Don't worry, Clarke. We will talk after the Wasteland.

-Right. Except if it's so filled with silver-eyed that they kill you, or if Alie manages to turn you. It's too dangerous, Lexa! This is not the way to win this fight! We should be staying together, gather an army and attack in mass, not sending her the most precious targets with only few dozens of men.

-Again, I cannot stay hidden behind the lines when all of my people are being slaughtered. I won't have this discussion with you anymore. Listen, as long as the radio keeps receipting, we will stay in contact. Clarke, if you have another dream, it is very important that you tell me about it.

-Of course.

-Really? Whether it is sent to you, or already stocked in your mind, you obviously detain important information. I need as much of those as you can give me.

-All right. You'll be the first and the last to know. Lexa…

-Yes?" The Commander's voice softened in her answer.

"-What I said, when you asked me how I was doing… It wasn't… I mean, it was true, but I didn't mean to sound angry at you. What I really meant was just… I'd want you here rather than away. I want you here."

She thought for a while that Lexa wouldn't answer, but, as she was getting ready to say something else, the Commander finally replied.

-I want this too, Clarke. Maybe my word doesn't mean anything to you by now, but I give it to you again anyway. I will be back. And when you're scared at night, think of this: I am outside, fighting, and I will slay everything that could threaten you before it ever has the chance to get close to you."

Leal shivered in the protection of her hazmat suit. They had all put on their suits when they first saw the Wasteland from afar; she had looked for Zeke when the dark zone had appeared, searching for reassurance. Not that the boy was any less scared than she was, but he was the only one of her people around, and the only one her age, the only one who admitted that he was afraid. The others, the grounders, seemed at worst uneasy; the Commander didn't even flinched. Leal had seen her looking at the Wasteland from the back of her horse her lieutenants by her side as rigid and impassible as stone. At least, that Shaïra girl had expressed some fright, and Maykl nervousness, but the Commander just stared. The rest of the grounders following her example, had kept riding in the direction of the silvered ground as though the landscape was perfectly normal.

It was nothing of the sort. The silver river that they had found in the village had rejoined all of the other veins to form an underground layer of silver, melting the snow above it. At the center of the silver lake stood the darkened palisade of wood enclosing the Wasteland itself; it now seemed like a pathetic protection, after what they saw since the beginning of their journey. Beyond this palisade, Leal thought, there would be the cadaver of a burned village, and a level of radiation that none of them had experienced before.

The horses were getting nervous, and soon enough, it became clear that they were feeling danger. It was as far as the biggest part of the team was supposed to go; there wasn't enough hazmat suit for everyone to go near the Wasteland. Leal was getting more scared as time passed; this was it.

They had protective suits, and the all Mount Weather horror had at least proved that Sky people were highly resistant to the radiations, but nothing proved that this would be enough to survive this. And the grounders that were to accompany her would have even less time than her; if she couldn't deactivate the core, or couldn't find it fast enough, they would all die. She gave another discreet look at the Commander. Leal would have liked to be as unafraid. The fear of dying, or to cause other people's deaths by being inefficient was eating her alive since they started to finally approach the Wasteland, and the Commander had to feel that way too, with all the people depending on her; but she acted like all of this was just a formality, as though she knew exactly what to do next. Leal had no idea what to do next. She only knew what the core would theoretically look like, that it was supposed to be at the center of the contaminated zone; but God, no one had ever imagined what it could do to people! What if it wasn't at all as she thought? What if it couldn't be deactivated or contained?

Even though she had been watching the Commander regularly, her attention was elsewhere now, and she didn't see the grounder approach her; she jumped like a fish out of water when the Commander spoke right next to her.

"-Are you ready to go, Leal of the Sky people?"

Leal gulped and bravely faced the other girl.

"-Yes, Commander", she said, showing her backpack to emphasize her answer. Suddenly, it seemed quite pathetic, even if it was filled with the best equipment you could find. It was equipment meant for nuclear risks, not for whatever this was. The Commander nodded, and went to take the lead of the small group, immediately followed by Shaïra. The latter briefly turned to Leal. "-Don't be afraid. You're the one who's dangerous to your enemy, right now."

Leal nodded, not quite convinced, but feeling a little better nevertheless. She had kind of forgotten that the all operation wasn't a desperate attempt to survive, but an attack to the enemy. An act of war. And if anything, she was surrounded by warriors.

Zeke hugged her briefly, telling her to be careful, and she felt that the boy was even more frightened than she was. He was originally supposed to come into the Wasteland with her, but since he was now their only healer, the Commander had him stay with the safest group, the ones who stayed behind with the horses.

No door had been built when the palisade had been erected, so they had to climb it, which wasn't the easiest task to perform when wearing a hazmat suit, with ropes and grapnels. The sight of the dead zone, when she reached the top of the palisade, made Leal froze. Burned trees, burned huts, burned ground, blackened and silvered.

The Commander stayed behind them, inside the enclosure of the palisade, but not venturing into the heart of the Wasteland. Leal could see how it was the wisest thing to do –if they were to die, better not take the Commander with them – but still, seeing her stand behind as they walked away from the wooden walls was a frightful sight. It wasn't presaging anything good for them, that the Commander wouldn't risk her life where she was sending them.

She nervously readjusted her backpack, which tended to slip on her right shoulder, and trotted to Shaïra, who had taken the lead and was walking fastly. The grounders knew exactly in which direction to go, and Leal wondered if some of them were from here or if all grounder villages just looked the same.

"-There was a bunker used by the chief in this village", Shaïra said when Leal caught up with her. "-If the core really is in the center, we'll find it there.

"-Ok. But what…" She renounced. There was no need to ask what-if questions by now. "-Are you still okay? No burning or anything?

-No. Maykl said that his brother had been in the Wasteland for half-an-hour before he came back to die. Maybe we'll have as much time."

Leal's answer was an unconvinced grunt. The way those grounders talked about their own death as though it wouldn't be more than a mild inconvenient was getting unnerving.

"-You're scared," Shaïra stated when the sky girl failed to come up with a better answer.

"-Well… I don't know how you're not! Your Commander isn't even coming with us, doesn't that tell you a lot about our surviving chances?

-It does, but I've faced worst odds before.

-It's not… Er, you're really not scared of dying? I mean, you're like my age, don't you think you haven't exactly lived life to its fullest?

-Seventeen is an age that a lot of us don't ever reach, and I've lived quite a lot in this time. If I die now, I'll die fulfilling my duty to the Commander and to my people, and my spirit will find a worthy warrior to…

-Your what? Wait, do you believe that your spirit's gonna be…. You think you're gonna have a second life when you die in that one?

-I don't know about its number, but a new life, yes. What do you think will happen to your spirit?"

Leal rolled her eyes, uselessly, since they were all wearing hazmat suits, and gave a thought to Shaïra's question. It would probably dissolve along with the neuronal connection in her brain, right?

"-We don't think that body and spirit are so easily dissociated, actually. When one dies, they… Kinda both die.

-Oh." There was a silence, and Leal figured that the grounder girl was grasping the idea. Thinking about it, maybe it hadn't be the best time to share this knowledge. A crisis of faith was the last thing the grounders needed now.

"-I don't believe that," Shaïra kept going. "-Our spirits are in the right place, and they still will be after our deaths."

So that was what having faith was, Leal mused. That seemed to be reassuring. Although walking unafraid in such a place may not be such a smart line of action, so maybe faith was a little too reassuring.

The central bunker was underground, but its metallic entry stood in the heart of the village, among the decomposed corpses of the people who had lived there. Leal desperately tried to avoid the sight of the bodies, but the team had to remove some of them from the door, and even if the grounders took care of it, she couldn't help but seeing the wretched way the cadavers practically dislocated under the rough touch of the warriors. Tears burned her eyes as she looked away, fully aware that this was exactly how they would all end up if she couldn't succeed.

It wasn't fair, she thought. She wasn't supposed to be the one handling this. They had real scientists, who knew better than her… And, well, who were dead. All things considered, she was luckier that they were, but still, she wished she hadn't been the one bearing that responsibility.

The first grounder to open the door precipitately stepped back with a scream, slamming the door closed again. The others recoiled immediately, Leal included. The man fell to the floor, still screaming, louder with every second, until Shaïra told something to another warrior, who, without any hesitation, unsheathed his blade and plunged it into the man's throat. Horrified, Leal started yelling at them, not really knowing what the hell she was saying, completely unable to understand how she could have travelled and get friendly with people that would slaughter one of their own without blinking, just because he was in pain, instead of trying to help him. Shaïra grabbed her shoulder to shake her out of her outburst.

"-Calm down! He was already dead. We only spared him the pain.

-You don't know that!" Leal shouted, higher than she knew her voice could go. "-We could have…

-Wasted time and died along with him. Yes, we could have. Now, get yourself together and walk in there. We obviously can't, but your people stand radiations better.

-But… We just… You expect me to go by myself for no… I can't…

-You knew your life would be in danger when you agreed to leave Camp Jaha with us. You came anyway, for your people. You're brave, Leal. So act like it."

Leal turned back to face the door of the bunker, repressing the urge to run away. If she was to get in and that nor the hazmat suit nor her Sky blood were enough to protect her, she'd be dead in a minute, probably killed by a grounder after a time of excruciating pain. She thought of her best friend back in Camp Jaha, Keagan. How awful it would be to never see her again! She should have left Zeke a message for her, in case of. K would be so lonely, without her.

Behind her, Shaïra was getting nervous, and Leal realized that despite her calm attitude, the girl had no more will to die than her, and was dreading the effect of the radiation. The all team probably did, and yet they accepted to put their lives between her hands. They went without a protestation into the Wasteland when the Commander ordered them to.

"-Ok," she muttered, knowing that no one but her would be able to hear it. "-Here we are."

Very reassuringly, the grounders all took few steps back when she approached the door, and it was with a vision blurred by tears of fear that she grabbed the handle and opened the bunker.

A wave of suffocating heat hit her when she entered, but except for a slight dizziness, she felt nothing else. Her heart slammed against her ribcage as she finally got a look at the core. It didn't look as she expected it to. First of all, it was beautiful. Small and silvery, floating few feet above the ground, it had the shape of a star –the way children draw stars, a little ball with lines supposed to figure the rays. The air around seemed to be shining, as though the core was spreading a silver light that somehow enlightened every particle of oxygen.

Snapping out of her fascination, Leal unpacked the equipment –all items supposed to isolate radioactive objects, from the pliers meant to grab it to the most important – the box that, hopefully, would contain the core. Before leaving in the first expedition and never come back, which was now explained by the presence of the silver-eyed, the first team of Sky scientist had used a lot of the technology found it Mount Weather to come up with this box.

The heat was becoming unbearable as she prepared the procedure, and the air burning, painful to breathe. She was facing a dose of radiations that even her evolved body might not be able to survive.

The preparation wasn't an issue for her; the real challenge would come when she would attempt to isolate the core –that shining little silver star. If their equipment wasn't strong enough, there would be no way to be done with the Wastelands. She felt her skin blister, burn, and die as she approached the core, first on her hands, then, as she got closer, on her arms, and finally on her face, neck and shoulders, but she kept walking to it, her jaw clenched so hard that it hurt, resolved not to let a cry escape her mouth. But she did, when her suit suddenly caught fire –at least that was how it looked like, but she realized that it wasn't real fire, rather a silvery imitation of flames that melted the suit around her. She jumped out of the burning remains, and, forcing herself to not look, to not even think of her skin, peeling under her clothes, crossed the last bit of distance between her and the core.

The box closed around it with the most wonderful noise, and immediately, the air went back to a normal temperature, and the unnatural glowing around the core disappeared. Once completely enclosed, it exploded. The box held, now only containing a silver liquid –a silver moving, changing liquid. Before her eyes, it took, in the small space it had, the form of a face, then showed itself as a star again, and as a map, before finally settling down as a simple liquid again.

She sealed the bow carefully –she wanted to be over with it as soon as she could, but she was shaking so much that she was afraid to make a mess of it if she rushed. She slowly packed all of her equipment again, except for the box -that, she would give to the Commander, and hopefully never get close to it ever again- and went for the door on shaking legs. How it hurt! Did the Mountain Men suffered that much? Probably even more… She hoped that neither Bellamy nor Clarke would ever learn how terribly painful radiation burns were. She winced when the weight of her backpack rested on her shoulders again, and guessed that her skin had been damaged there as well.

The grounders had been staying away from the door, but Shaïra joined her as soon as she got out of the bunker.

"-Is it… Did it work?" She spoke in an even voice, but Leal heard the hope that she was trying to conceal.

"-Yeah. That's the core. Harmless as long as it stay in here."

She gave a weak smile to the girl, who put a light hand on her arm –it amazed Leal, how soft her touch was.

"-Thank you, Leal."

The rest of the team echoed her.

"-Let's go back, now. The Commander is waiting for news, and you need a healer."

Carefully, she took Leal's backpack from her shoulders, which the girl welcomed with relief. It wasn't especially heavy, but it had been resting on her burns, and patches of blood appeared through her clothes where the straps had been pressing.

It only took them few minutes to get to the wooden wall where the Commander was waiting for them.


	21. Chapter 21

Bellamy was waiting for her, not in her room as she told him, but right outside, standing before the door. He saw her as soon as she turned in the hallway, before she had a chance to. She stopped when their looks met, uncertain of how she was going to handle this. She had been the one making this happen even though she knew it was a bad idea, she was now going to take it to an end before making even more of a mess, but she'd be damned if she knew how. And he smiled to her. She acknowledged it by twitching the corners of her mouth, which really was the closest thing of a smile this situation inspired her. They both entered her room, and she closed the door behind her. Sighing, she turned to him –he was facing her, and reached to her as soon as the door was closed.

"-Clarke…

-Wait, wait." She interrupted, before he was close enough to touch her. "-I think I should go first." He stopped to consider her.

"-Why?

-I just… You should hear what I have to say before…

-No, I mean… I know you, you know. You're about to tell me this was a one-time thing or something like that. Why?"

She bit her lip, taken aback. Well, at least she wouldn't have to break it to him.

"-Because I shouldn't have done that to begin with.

-Done that? You're saying that like it was a crime or something. We didn't do anything wrong, Clarke. It was far from wrong.

-It wasn't right either.

-Why not? Is this because you still feel guilty? If so, Clarke, you can't just… You can't stop living because of what happened.

-That's not it.

-Then what? You know…" He looked at her with his head just a little tilted and this sad look she was starting to know so well. "-You know how I feel about you, right?"

She closed her eyes briefly and readied herself.

"-Yeah. That's exactly why I was wrong to come to you. I don't… I'm sorry, Bellamy, really, but I don't feel like that. I care about you, a lot, but not… Not like you do. I should never have come, not…

-Then why _did_ you?

-Because I needed someone. I needed to not be alone, and I knew you'd… I knew you'd be there for me."

They stared at each other in silence for few seconds, and she forced herself not to look away.

"-So you just…" He started, but stopped almost immediately.

"-I'm sor…

-You just barged in here and, and… Because you knew I was in love with you and thought I wouldn't mind being used for… For comfort sex?

-I knew you would mind, of course, that's exactly why I'm telling you this was wrong! I know it was terrible and I should never have done that! I just…

-You just what?" He barked at her, and she stepped back, almost physically hurt. She didn't have that much space to back up though –she hit the door immediately.

"-I just couldn't stand the night alone. And I know this is no reason to use you like that, but I… I didn't know what else to do.

-I can think of literally dozens of things you could have done! The same thing you had done the nights before, to begin with! I mean, it had been days since you got back, why did you… Why the hell did you suddenly decide that this night you couldn't spent without fucking someone?

-Hey, you don't need to…

-To what, get angry? Do you even realize… You're not the only one who's hurting here, Clarke, you know that? I killed them as much as you did! Do you think I don't feel awful about that? Do you think I don't wish it ended differently? But you don't see me going around making everyone feel sorry for me and even less bang people to make myself feel better!

-You weren't in charge!" She shouted, matching the raise of his voice. "-You were following orders, mine, no matter what you said about that. I took charge of everything and got hundreds –hundreds, Bellamy- of people killed! I don't think I'm the only one person in pain, but yeah, I do believe that I'm the only mass murderer around here, and excuse me if I'm not dealing particularly well with this! I make mistakes, okay? I mess up –in pretty much everything I do, and yeah, I made a mistake coming to you, but that doesn't give you the right to attack me like that.

-Attack you? I've been nothing but supportive since the minute you came back –since Mount Weather, actually! We've all been as nice as we all could, and you keep pushing us away, you keep acting like you're the only one who has to deal with bad stuff, and the one time you actually let someone in, you come the next day pushing me out again! How have I not the right to be mad?

-I did not… I haven't been pushing you away…

-Are you kidding me? When was the last time you even talked to anyone of us, except in the Council meetings? Have you even seen your mother lately? The only one person you haven't been shutting out, for reasons beyond my comprehension, was Lexa, and you…"

He stopped altogether, like something struck him.

"-That's why you came last night. That's why you wouldn't stay alone, right? You thought she was dead and you… You needed someone to warm her place in your bed?

-I have never… Ok, you're completely off trail there! Just because I don't want to sleep with you anymore, it doesn't necessarily mean there's someone else, you know. Sorry to tell you, I just don't have feelings for you.

-You know what, it actually makes fucking way more sense all of the sudden. You two…

-Us two nothing, God! You're talking about _Lexa_! The freaking Commander! That burned our friend and ditched us literally at the door of Mount Weather!

-Yeah, the freaking Commander who spent more than time than your own mother at the infirmary when you were there, who freaked out so much when we thought you were dead that she was ready to send her entire nation to war to get back at Alie! The Commander you still talk to more than to anyone else even though she's not even there anymore!

-Ok, we'll have this discussion when you're not delusional anymore."

He caught her arm as she turned to open the door, forcing her to face him again.

"-You're not going anywhere before you tell me the truth.

-Let me go _now_.

-No way, Princess. You owe me the t…

-I don't owe you anything!

-You used me and lied to me!

-Oh, because you never used anyone for sex!

-Not someone that was actually in love with me, no!

-Well I'm sorry that you fell in love with me, I really am, but I can't unmake that for you, and I can't make myself love you back either, so no matter what we do, that probably means you're gonna be hurt. But you need to find a way to deal with it without freaking out like that, 'cause we've got a war in our hands, Bellamy, and we need to be a team –which definitely won't happen if you're busy trying to figure out who I'm sleeping with. Especially since I'm not sleeping with anyone, least of all Lexa. Yeah, I have been spending time with her, but it's not like that. You don't know what it feels like to… She gets me. Maybe I've been pushing you –all of you- away, but you just can't imagine how I feel around you. With her, I… Well, she definitely is a mass murderer too. When I'm with her, it's the only time I don't feel like a monster.

-Clarke, you're not! I'm seriously mad at you right now, but it doesn't mean… You're not a monster, you just tried to save your people like we all did! You need to stop beating yourself up, and…

-See, I know you're probably thinking what you're saying, but it just… It doesn't make anything better. The way you all are with me, it just makes me feel… Like you're all so great to me and I don't deserve any of it. So yeah, last night was probably the worst idea I had since –oh, you know, that one time I killed an entire civilization. And I'm sorry about it. And that's actually really all that I wanted to say to you.

-You're doing it again. Will you please explain me how you expect not to be alone if you don't let anyone be there for you?

-I'm not having that discussion. I just wanted to apologize, and now we're done.

-We really might be, if you keep acting like that, Clarke.

-If you feel that it's better that way, fine. As long as we can keep working together."

That silenced him, and he just stared at her, as if he couldn't believe what she said. She turned to open the door, and didn't turn back when he found his voice again and called her through the hallway.

….

Zeke muttered apologies again when Leal winced at his contact. She could tell that he was trying to be gentle, but her skin was burning as hell, and she had been in constant pain since she left the bunker. On her hands and arms, it was more than hurting; it had actually burned, or melted, or whatever those kinds of radiations did to human flesh. Despite Zeke's reassurance that it was only superficial, she couldn't help being scared; it was goddamn painful, it looked just like the burns of the Mountain Men –and they only survived it few minutes- and even if Zeke was right and that it was only skin wounds, she had been exposed to an insane dose of radiations. There was no way to predict the long-terms effects.

He had given her painkillers before anything else, which she was grateful beyond words about, but as he took care of her burns, she caught herself thinking that she would give the world to be hooked up on something else right now.

She had spent a whole lot of her last year on the Arch stoned with pretty much anything she could land a hand on –actually, that was what had guaranteed her a passage on Earth- but it had never been really addictive drugs, and after the Hundreds were sent to the ground, she had barely missed it –maybe the first days, but after that, they all had been too busy surviving to even think about getting high. Although the berries had been entertaining. Until today, it had seemed like a brutal change of life was the best rehab cure ever. But right now, she would have killed for one single joint, for example. Filled only with weed.

Well, that was something else that was lost to them forever, she thought, focusing on that subject to avoid being overwhelmed by the pain. Even if Zeke was really gentle, the feeling of the disinfectant and bandages on her damaged skin, added to the throbbing pain of the burns, was terrible.

It took him a long time to be done with her, mostly because he had to peel the burned sleeves of her shirt along with the dead skin on her arms before he could actually treat her wounds. She left the tent as soon as he cleared her –she knew there was no way he could have done his job without hurting her; still, for now, she needed to get away from him and any medical stuff. The painkillers were luckily starting to work their magic, and she thought that, with a proper distraction, she could actually forget about the all thing for a while.

Her favorite thinking topic of the month, the Commander, wasn't anywhere to be seen, which probably meant that she was in her tent, possibly with Shaïra or Maykl. She was still wearing her hazmat suit when Leal had handed her the core sealed in his box, making it impossible for the Sky girl to see her reaction, but when they had all got out of the Wasteland, and that the Grounders all took their suits off, she seemed exactly as usual, in control, and freakily calm. She could have been at least a little thrilled, Leal thought. After all, even if one man died for it, the core, and thus the Wasteland, had been neutralized! It was about the first good news since the beginning of all this mess. But noooo, when Leal had given her the box, she had took it and only nodded. Apparently, that was all the acknowledgment that Leal could hope for.

….

It was the end of the afternoon when the radio familiarly crackled, and Clarke immediately picked up.

"-We're listening.

-Clarke. I have good news."

Once again, the sound of Lexa's voice raised a mix of feelings: worry, miss, relief… The other Sky people around, namely Bellamy, Kane, Raven and Octavia, regrouped next to the radio.

"-Good news as in you managed to neutralize the core of the Wasteland?" She asked.

"-Yes. Yes, we did. Your scientists did, really.

-YES!" Raven shouted, and Clarke smiled, imitated by the others.

"-Wow. That _is _great news. Did it go according to their plans?

-The procedure did, but the core itself is different than what they expected. It is stabilized in a liquid form now, but it went through several states before that.

-What do you mean, states?

-I didn't see it, this is what Leal told me. She said it changed forms when she locked it in the box. It took the form of a map, then a face.

-Wait, what?" Bellamy intervened. "-What is that thing even made of?

-I have no idea, nor do I care, as long as it is not threatening my lands anymore.

-Did anyone get hurt? Was there anyone in the Wasteland?

-No. One was killed by the radiation, but no attacks.

-Clarke, should I send the birds fetch everyone else? Seems like some good news could do good.

-Yeah. Lexa, what did Leal say about that? What does she think of it?

-She doesn't know more than this either. The core is contained by the box, but when free, it is still very dangerous, and she doesn't think it is possible to study it. Not without the proper equipment, at least.

-Maybe you shouldn't travel with that thing, then.

-And what would I do with it? Leave it without anyone to watch it, where it could be taken back by Overseas Men? No, bring it with us is the safest option. It will be studied when we come back to Camp Jaha.

-So what, now?

-You know what. It works. We can disable many Wastelands, and we can't afford to lose time. If we head for Polis now, we'll be able to neutralize at least three or four of them by the time we get there, make sure the clans all know what is happening and are ready to defend themselves.

-So you really are gonna go all the way there?

-This was the plan.

-Yeah. I know. Hey, your chiefs and the rest of the Council are coming."

This time, there were less protestations from the leaders of the Clan, who in their majority were relieved to hear about the success of Lexa's team. Clarke was relieved as well, but Lexa's prolonged absence was going to leave her with another problem in her hands, she realized soon enough. There was an army of grounders before the camp. An army without Commander. A frustrated, worried army that no one was controlling anymore. How long before they started to think that their Commander was far enough for her orders to be ignored, that no one was forcing them to stay by the Sky people's side?

There was enough to say for the meeting to last until sundown, by which Clarke had to push her friends out of the room after the departure of the chiefs to talk to Lexa alone. Now that her warriors were out of the room and unable to hear her, she sounded tired, Clarke thought. Tired, tensed, and still worried about Clarke.

"-Have you had other dreams?

-Since this morning?

-I was referring to the last nights.

-Not Alie's ones, no. Just plain old regular nightmares. You know the type, don't you?

-Yes. Do you think they stopped for good?

-Maybe," she lied.

"-Maybe you shouldn't sleep alone, though. It worries me that you stay alone so much. If anything happens…

-Hey, you're the one travelling in a land infested by zombies with less than twenty warriors. I have an entire arm around me, if anything happens, I think I'm covered.

-Zombies? I don't know that word.

-Well, it's a dead person who's still –you know, moving, walking, and generally trying to eat people alive.

-You have a word for that? How specific. Are they all supposed to have silvered eyes?

-No. The silver-eyed aren't technically zombies, actually –luckily for us, because those contaminate living people by biting them, and that wouldn't mean anything good for you. You don't have any symptoms, right? No fever or anything?

-No. I don't think they are like your zombies.

-Well, good. That's one reason why you'll never come back that we can cross out.

-Clarke…

-Yeah, I know, you still think that you are coming back. You're still set on the second moon of winter? It's in barely two months.

-I considered that we might have to go all the way to Polis when I said that. It was always on the table, and it doesn't change anything to what I told you. I know you don't believe me, but yes, Clarke, before the second moon of winter rises and dies, I will be there –at the door of your camp."

There was a silence.

"-Will you be there too?

-Lexa, if you do come back…

-When.

-If you come back, there is nothing on this planet that will stop me to be there waiting for you. You know what, I'll even have made my damn mind.

-I'm sorry I said that. I truly am.

-Well, you could have put it less brutally, but you were right. I'm… still not sure how I'm supposed to with you –or without you- but by the time you come back, if you do, I'll at least have figured out which one I want. How does that sound to you?

-That sounds like a date, Clarke," Lexa answered, in an incredibly nice voice. At her own surprise, Clarke heard herself chuckle.

-Don't presume too much, Commander.

-I'll keep from doing that, Princess.

-Oh god, not you too! What on Earth is up with this princess thing?

-It's a good thing, Clarke. You were born to lead –my people and yours see this. This is a way of acknowledging it."

Clarke shook her head. "-They're wrong, Lexa. I'm nothing of a leader, I just got propelled here because everyone competent died! I'm gonna mess that up, like I do everything. Do you even know how many people I've lost? It's all gonna…

-Clarke," Lexa tried to interrupt her, then, as Clarke's panic kept flowing through the radio: "-Clarke, stop! Stop. None of this is true. You are afraid, it's normal. But no one gets leadership randomly. You were up against my people, who for the last century have been killing every day of their lives. You could never have saved everyone. The fact that you still have people alive at all is a miracle, one you made happen. You will not leave your people down. I have faith in you. Being afraid is normal, it doesn't lessen you if you don't let it.

-That's easy for you to say! You never are!

-Of fight? No. Of failure?" She paused an instant. "-When I first came to Polis, all the experience I had as a leader was commanding children and small groups of warriors, and I was asked to lead a nation in ruins. I was terrified.

-You were just a kid.

-That has nothing to do with it. I was inexperienced –just like you are- and that's why I was scared.

-Then how did you…

-I did what I knew was right. Just like you did when you first came to me, unarmed and defenseless. You did right by your people then, Clarke, and you will now too. They couldn't have a better leader than you. You can do this. Be strong.

-I don't know how to anymore.

-Then pretend until it becomes true. As long as people see you strong, Clarke, you'll have real strength, no matter how you really feel.

-And how do _you _really feel?

-What?

-How are you? It can't be easy to deal with all of this alone. I know you were far from all right when we found out about the second phase."

There was a short intake of breath and a silence before Lexa's answer.

"-I'm fine.

-Your lands and your people are under attack and dying by thousands and you're fine?

-Yes." Lexa's voice brutally rose on that word and Clarke could practically see her angry look. She really wasn't used to contradiction.

"-Don't shut me out, Lexa," she pleaded. "-Even in the best case scenario, this is the last time we'll talk in weeks. Please, just be honest with me. You said you weren't afraid of fight, but you didn't say anything about failure. Are you?"

She only heard Lexa's breathing for few seconds. It sounded better than it had been few hours ago, and she guessed that the swelling had diminished a little.

"-People die in wars, and I cannot save them all," Lexa finally answered. "-But become a silver-eyed is worse than death. They weren't human anymore. Nor animals. They were… nothing. Only Alie's will made flesh. This is –as the Wastelands- unnatural. Wrong. War doesn't scare me, but what she's doing got me afraid, yes. But… She is using my own people against me. Burning my lands. Forcing me to kill my villagers. That doesn't scare me, Clarke, it infuriates me. So she's the one who'd better be afraid now, machine or not."

Weirdly, it made Clarke smile. She didn't really know how she would have reacted it Lexa had admitted being afraid or uncertain.

"-Well, then, do what you have to, and when you come back, we'll teach fear to that machine together.

"-I'll be looking forward to this," She said, and even through the radio, Clarke was certain that the Commander had had a smile as well. "-Clarke…

-Yes?" She encouraged when the rest failed to come.

"-I'm really looking forward to meet again. I… I miss you."

The words burned in Clarke's heart. She squeezed the radio so hard that she felt it crack between her fingers.

"-I'm sorry," she heard Lexa say precipitately. "-I…

-No, don't be." She had asked for honesty merely a minute ago, after all. And if she was to apply that to herself… The feeling was mutual, wasn't it? What else had she been thinking about, during all those sleepless nights? How many times had she wished for Lexa to be there?

"-I miss you too. So come back, okay? Don't… Please, don't let this be the last time we…

-I will. We will meet again, Clarke." She added something in Triguedasleng, which Clarke welcomed with a sad smile.

"-I don't know what that means, Lexa.

-It doesn't matter. I'll translate it for you someday.

-Did you just say something I wouldn't like to hear?

-I rather hope that you would like to hear it. I must go, Clarke. We're breaking camp."

Even though she had been expecting it, it hurt Clarke like a physical blow.

"-Wait, wait!

-I didn't mean in the second. I wouldn't hang up on you with such little warning.

-Oh.

-Is there anything else we need to talk about? Anything you want to tell me?

-I…" She gulped. Well there was the real extent of her dreams, for once, and the grounder army behind the fence of the camp that was left Commanderless to deal with, and there was Bellamy, what she did with him and his reaction, and… And suddenly she was on the verge of tears, thinking that in minutes, she would have to let Lexa go once again. And she didn't want to any more than the first times. She tried again to answer, but choked on her words.

Lexa called her name, softly.

"-Be careful, all right?" She managed to say. "-Don't get killed or anything bad. Be safe. I… I just want you to come back. And if you don't, I swear I'll find your goddamn spirit wherever it is and make it understand that you don't break a promise!

-I don't intend to break that one. My spirit will stay right where it is. Be careful too, Clarke. We know more about Alie and her Overseas men now, but they may have weapons we still don't know about. Don't stay alone too much.

-Yeah. Don't worry about me, I'll still be safer than you.

-I'll see you on the second moon, then.

-At the door of the camp.

-Yes. Goodbye, Clarke.

-Goodbye, Lexa."

The clicking noise of the end of the transmission failed to come.

"-Lexa?" She asked, after few seconds.

"-I'll hang up," The Commander assured.

"-You didn't… I thought you would have already.

-Well, you didn't either.

-I didn't want to. I thought you'd be more determined.

-I didn't want to either.

-This might cause a problem, you know. At some point, one of us is gonna have to. More likely you. My radio has enough battery to stay on all day.

-I _will _hang up.

-In a near future?

-If you want me to hang up that badly…

-No…

-Me neither. We do have to, though.

-Yes, but… Will you do it? Please?

-As you wish. We will see each other soon, Clarke. Don't doubt it."

This time, after a second of silence, Clarke heard the transmission cut, and the radio went silent. She was still holding it, staring at nothing, when Raven came back to the room a dozen of minutes later.


	22. Chapter 22

It took Leal almost two weeks before even being talked to by the Commander. The girl wasn't avoiding her, or ignoring her, she simply only talked when she had orders to give. And as long as they weren't around a Wasteland, Leal was of no use for the grounders, so the Commander didn't have anything to say to her.

It was three days after the second Wasteland, at night. The camp had been set, the tents in circle to protect a central space where they had lit up several campfires. Zeke had just changed her bandages, which had all but been a pleasant moment, and she was outside of her tent, glooming next to one of the fires, when she had smelled something unmistakable. Although at the beginning she thought that she was mistaking. She got up almost brutally, getting herself few surprised looks, and spotted Shaïra, alone next to the entrance of her own tent, smoking from what could only be described as a calumet, something that Leal had only saw in old movies before. She approached the grounder, who invited her to sit next to her.

"-What were you looking at?" Shaïra asked when Leal complied.

"-Your, your calumet, is that the right word?

-It is. Don't you Sky people have those?

-No, we don't…" She hesitated, then, with a hopeful smile, asked the question that was burning her lips. "-That's weed you're smoking, isn't it?

-Weed? I don't know, maybe you call it that way. It is starleaf to us.

-Oh, yeah, that might be the same thing.

-Do you want to try it?"

At this precise moment, it seemed to Leal that after all, facing a Wasteland or two was worth it.

"-Yes, please!"

Her enthusiasm seemed to amuse Shaïra, who handed her the calumet. Leal breathed in, to find out with delight that starleaf was indeed very definitively the same thing as weed. She breathed a cloud of smoke out, with a wide smile. It had been months since the last time she had had anything to smoke, which had let her time to forget how relaxing it was. And it was a way better quality that the sad version that they had on the Arch.

She had stayed with Shaïra for the rest of the evening, and maybe an hour after this, they saw the Commander exiting her tent. Her look had met Shaïra's, who showed her the calumet, with an interrogative expression. Next thing Leal knew, the Commander was sitting right next to her, smoking the hell out of that calumet. Both of the grounders turned to her when the sight made her laugh.

"-What is it?" Shaïra asked her.

"-It's just that weed… Starleaf, is super illegal among our people, so… A leader smoking some, it's like the last thing I expected to see.

-Your people have alcohol, but they cannot have starleaf? Why?" The Commander asked, raising an eyebrow. Next to Leal, Shaïra was seemingly horrified by the idea of smoking being illegal.

"-Why, I guess it's because… It's not the same thing, alcohol is kind of traditional, you know, and starleaf is just… Er, I'm not the best person to ask, it's one of the laws I broke the most back on the Arch.

-I can understand why!" Shaïra said. At Leal's surprise, the exclamation made the Commander slightly smile as she breathed smoke out, slowly.

"-You know, it's a shame I don't have what Sky people use to smoke, I could show you some ways to enjoy it even more.

-Maybe we shall look into this when we get back to your camp, then.

-It would be an honor, Commander."

And that would be a real blast too, Leal thought. There was no way anyone would even bother telling her that she was breaking the law if she was doing it to please the Commander. Who knew there was such fun sides to the company of grounders?

The Commander only joined them few times, but it became a habit for Leal to spend most of her evenings with Shaïra. One night, few days later, after the Commander left, she finally worked up the courage to ask Shaïra about the scars on her face. She had been wondering about it since the first time she saw the girl, because it obviously came from a fight, but it seemed several years old –and Shaïra was barely older than her. That unpleasantly indicated that she had barely been a teenager when someone had tried to kill her by sword-slashing her face or something as nice. She would surely had been beautiful without it; but as things were, she looked more dreadful than nice.

"-It was in a battle against the Swamp Clan," Shaïra answered, without taking umbrage of Leal's curiosity.

"-Swamp Clan? I didn't remember there was one.

-You couldn't, they were exterminated five years ago. It was my first year as Derna's second, and I was by her side in the fight. I had a bad guard back then."

She said this on a humorous tone, and Lead let out a horrified laugh.

"-I'd say… But… How old were you? If you had just became second…

-Twelve years old, I think. The warrior who did that had a two-bladed swords, you wouldn't see that anymore, they were the only ones to fight with those. They used it to leave wounds harder to heal, since they were so close to one another. Hence the double scar.

-You know, I realize that children among your people are trained the hard way, but… It seriously isn't a problem for your warriors to swing a weapon like that in a little girl's face?

-Truthfully, I don't think he took the time to realize that I was a child. My head was about at the same height as an adult's chest, he was probably going for this. You don't need to look that upset, you know. I don't know what you Sky people have with scars, but for us, it's nothing to be ashamed of. It means that you weren't afraid to face death for your clan, that you were dangerous enough for your enemies to actually bother to try kill you.

-I guess we just… We're more focused on people's attractiveness, and you know, the bad effect of a scar on that…" She interrupted herself when Shaïra put an undecipherable look on her. "-Ok, that so wasn't what I meant. I'm sorry, I really didn't mean that you…

-Look awful?

-No, you absolutely don't! And I absolutely didn't mean to imply, that, Shaïra, I'm really…

-Oh, so you do think I'm attractive?"

Leal blushed so hard that the heat of the fire suddenly seemed redundant.

-Well, hum, I… I mean, I'm not the most qualified person to answer this, you know, I'm more, hum, you know, into guys, no offense…

-I know, Leal" Shaïra said, with a frank smile. Her eyes shone with silent laughter. "-Relax, I'm just teasing you. We're good.

-Oh! Ok. Ok, cool." She took with relief the calumet that Shaïra was handing her, and breathed in a long toke. If grounders had a sense of humor, now, she definitively needed some more.

"-Hey, what do you mean, you know? What did I ever do that let you know that?

-I just notice those things. You see, I, for myself, am very much into girls, and it's always better to know where you have a chance before you make your move.

-Oh. Right. I see your point. So, is there anyone in particular, or…?"

Shaïra slightly sighed, her stare lost into the nothingness of the night.

-No. There was someone not so long ago, but…

-Didn't end well?

-Didn't really end at all. She was here one day and left the next, without… It just didn't mean the same for her as it did for me.

-Oh, I'm sorry. That's… Not cool to do that to someone.

-No, it isn't like that. She wasn't playing me, it was clear from the start that it was just physical. I was the one who stupidly got attached.

-It's not stupid! Caring for someone, it's never stupid.

-It is when you know the other never will for you.

-Look, you never know. Lots of things can happen, right?"

Shaïra nodded with a pensive smile, but didn't seem to be really convinced.

…..

They had been travelling for several weeks when they first met living villagers. They were fleeing. Having spotted the tracks of the horses, they had followed it until they arrived in sight of the team. They were people of the Grasslands, the Clan whose lands were directly north from Polis. Recognizing their Commander, they implored her for protection. Their village had been attacked by silver-eyed, the region poisoned by a Wasteland, and half of those who survived had fled east. Trying to find the old city of the legends, the City of Lights which -according to the rumors- was the only haven still safe.

Lexa knew that this legend had been told through generations, but not once she had thought that people could actually take it seriously enough to really seek it –except for the few lunatics and exiled of the Dead zone. She never thought it would actually become necessary to warn people not to go to the City of Lights.

Her people died poisoned by the Wastelands. They had been turned into Alie's servants. They had been torn to pieces by the silver-eyed. And now, they were seeking shelter in Alie's land. How had things took such a terrible turn in so little time? It had been barely a month since the apparition of the first Wasteland, but it seemed like the end of the world really was coming –had already began. She had to get to Polis as soon as humanly possible. From there, she could send messengers everywhere in the Coalition, organize some decent protection for the lands still untouched and some real sheltering for the ones who had to flee their homes.

This was a campaign, not unlike all the ones she had led before, she told herself. Things had seemed bleak before. However, she couldn't shake off the thought that she had been too slow. That she had reacted late to everything –that Alie had had time to place all her pawns and fire the first strike before Lexa even knew something was wrong. And that this delay would cost her people everything. There already were so many victims, so many of her people that she had failed.

That night she tried to contact the Sky Council –knowing fully that she had no chance to succeed. They were far beyond the limit of the radio's power and all she got were fizzling and crackling noises that never cleared. She was surprised by how affected she was by that. She had been the one comforting Clarke few weeks ago; tonight she could have used some comfort herself. Not being told nice things or anything like that, but just hearing Clarke's voice… Much to her surprise, she had to swallow cries back. Ghost pain lingered in her throat. She had to get a hold on herself. Too many things depended on her for her to get emotional and mess up.

She raised her head at Shaïra's entrance. Their camp had become quite crowded with the integration of the villagers, making them share tents where they had had on by person before. Lexa could have kept her own for herself, of course, but she didn't mind sharing that much. She slept better with people around anyway. Always had.

"-The villagers are settling in, Heda. Zeke's a little overwhelmed, but he's handling well.

-Good. What about Leal? Is she all right?"

Shaïra slightly shook her head: "-She's in pain. But she's tough. For a Sky person."

Lexa nodded. Those Sky kids were at their people's image: soft-looking and inexperienced, but revealing themselves in hard times.

"-Did it work?" Shaïra asked when she noticed the radio.

-No. We're too far.

-This is what was planned, isn't it?

-It is. But we didn't know about people fleeing to the City of Lights when we planned it.

-We could send a messenger…

-Alone? He would probably never arrive. No, we will do as planned. Our priority must remain to reach Polis as soon as we can."

….

Clarke mindlessly let the pills fall in the glass before swallowing her drink to the last drop. After her first take, she had soon found out that she only needed one pill to knock Alie's dreams away; but that time had passed, and she went from one to one and a half, then two, and now three. She had no doubt that it would be insufficient soon enough, and at some point, it would became dangerous, especially if the number of occurrences kept rising. For the time being, though, she was doing all right. She would worry about tomorrow tomorrow. The dream that first convinced her to raise her dosage had been lacking of new information; the only thing that she learned for sure was that she had been right to fear it. _Something _was happening to her during those dreams, and should she let them blossom instead of knocking herself out with morphine, she wasn't certain not to wake up turned. Devoted to Alie forever, not even caring if everyone she knew had to die in order for Alie's plans to bear their fruits. And maybe, who knew, maybe once a turned one, she would sometimes have dreams of what she used to be, dreams of a dead mind that would terrify her as Alie's nightmares terrified her now. All in all, she'd rather take her chance with morphine.

It had been a month since her last contact with Lexa, after the deactivation of the Wasteland. She hadn't believed it would work, to be honest. As she still didn't believe that the Commander would ever be back, despite her reaffirmed promise. The thought would still stir her out of sleep almost every night, and she would stay lying, her eyes wide open staring at the ceiling. More than once, in those moments, she had thought about joining Bellamy in his room. As wrong as it was, she knew he wouldn't send her away, even after their argument; he loved her, she knew that. Other people knew, which was even more of a problem. The week after they slept together, Octavia had peaked looks at her whenever she thought that she couldn't see her, and even though the girl never addressed it, Clarke was certain that she knew. She hadn't thought that Bellamy would tell to anyone, but after all, they were brother and sister; maybe Octavia had figured out on her own that something was up with him. Or maybe Lincoln, after all. He was observant, somewhat close to Bellamy, and he wasn't known for his ability to keep secrets from Octavia.

Nevertheless, she never acted on those thoughts. Getting involved in some kind of rebound relationship… Although rebound was a big word; what Lexa and her had could never be described as a relationship per say. Getting involved in an emptiness-filler relationship with someone who genuinely cared was the last thing on Earth she needed. Maybe it would help with the sleepless night, a little, but at the end of the day she would only feel worse, and Bellamy didn't deserve to be used like that. Breaking his heart, make him resent her, would only make it harder for the both of them to work together, and they needed to be able to do that more than ever.

So she would only stay in her bed, thinking. She would think about her ghosts, her whole lot of ghosts. The grounders had names for her, and she had learn about a few of them. Sky Princess seemed to have been made her official title, but when they told the stories to those who hadn't been here before Mount Weather, she was the Commander of death. The fire that came from the stars. Destroyer of lives. Slayer of the mountain.

It had ended up helping a lot. Lexa had been able to see that strength didn't reside mostly in the ability to kill, but most grounders, including the leaders of the Clans, weren't thinking that way. What she did, to them, was glorious. Imposed respect to any warrior. Long gone was Quint, who had dared to call her "girl" and defy her. As much as she had tried to show them that all she wanted was to work together, in order to survive, most grounders seemed convinced that if any of them tried to cross her, their villages would be nothing but ashes by morning, or something like that. At some point, she had just stopped trying to be a Sky leader treating with foreign leaders as equals, and had, at least at their benefice, embraced the role.

In the War Council meetings, she had met the leaders of every clan, but in the days after the last time she talked to Lexa, she had talks with every single one of them, privately. They were here on their Commander's orders, and Clarke wasn't the only one unoptimistic regarding her chances of survival; she feared it wouldn't be long before some of the grounders started to question the statu quo. It had been along those meetings that she learned a lot about the way the grounders saw her, about the way to deal with them.

Indra was still one of the most hostile, but also one of those whose loyalty to Lexa was unwavering. No matter how much she felt about the situation they were in, she would do what the Commander had ordered her to do, and that was stay here with her people, work peacefully with the Sky people, and submit herself to the decisions of the War Council. It made her a reluctant support, but a support nonetheless. Auri, leader of the River Clan, was a real ally –or a man with a long-term plan, as Bellamy once suggested, but Clarke was inclined to believe that the young man was as much on their side as he could be. She had learned that he became the chief of his clan only few weeks ago, when the previous one had disappeared; he had taken the leadership in his quality of second, which he had been for years, and had been confirmed only when the survivors of Alie's prisoners told him and his clan about his chief's death in the desert. Auri's second was his own little brother, Nol.

Eris, who had succeeded Derna as chief of the Mist Clan, was also ferociously loyal to Lexa and to the Coalition; from him, Clarke learned that the Mist Clan was the very first one that had been forced into peace; the fights had been terrible, and the clan left as the shadow of what it used to be, but the survivors had sworn their lives to the Commander. Which had startled Clarke at first, since it didn't seem like a normal reaction to have towards someone who just massacred most of your people, but then something he said made her realize that from their point of view, Lexa had actually been unbelievably merciful: to the last moment, she had allowed any Mist warrior to join her forces rather than being killed, and let even the families of those who fought her to their last breaths live in peace, granted that they would swear loyalty to her. As a result, not only the Mist Clan had been part of the Coalition for the last six years, they were also its most convinced defenders, and most of them, especially the youngest, took pride in being its first clan.

Clarke's meeting with Nia, the leader of the Ice Nation, had worried her more than those. To begin with, she didn't even know why and how she could be a queen, the ruler of a nation, if her clan was part of the Coalition, and under Lexa's authority. And really, that wasn't the kind of things you could just ask to a queen. This was finally answered by Serce, one of the grounders she had helped escape from Alie's island. She explained her that before the time of the Coalition, in the days of Commander Henra, few clans of the north had united their forces, and if all four of them were still led by their own chiefs –Serce led the one of the west- their alliance was ruled by a queen that the four chiefs chose together. Their first queen had notoriously tried to engage her nation in a war against the Coalition few years later, which had been stopped only by the four chiefs and the mercy of the Commander. Lexa had been ready to let the Ice Nation remain independent, but quickly enough, their new queen, Nia, had seen the advantages of being part of the Coalition, and had willingly –as well as the four leaders- sworn loyalty to the Commander. The terms of nation and queen were more of a tradition than an effective reality.

Nia was older than Clarke –a little older that Bellamy, it seemed- and unsurprisingly cold. Despite what Serce had said about her leader not really being a queen, it was obvious that she was used to be served and obeyed. Luckily, Clarke had some experience in dealing with that kind. And Nia wasn't that bad. Behind all the decorum and the untouchable queen attitude, she was agreeably direct and didn't make a secret of her worries about the Commander's absence, and the lack of a battle plan or certain alliances. Nonetheless, she wasn't, as some of the other grounders, particularly defiant about the Sky people; she had found herself allied with a lot of clans unknown to her when she had rejoined the Coalition, and as far as she was concerned, the Skaikru was just like any one of them.

Strangely, this attitude of a queen from the north provided Clarke her first glimpse of what life could actually be for them on Earth. A life as a clan of the Coalition, a life among grounders. In few generations, their lives in space would only be of the fabric of legends. She kept talking to Nia, secretly upset by the thought –not necessarily in a bad way though.

All in all, the meeting with the Ice queen went pretty well; certainly better than the one with the leader of the Cave people, Tangas. He was a forty-something tall man, whom she remembered as being the one that Auri talked down when Lexa informed them about the silver-eyed. At his side when she met him in his tent stood a young warrior with a shaved and tattooed skull, whom she first took for a teenage boy until he spoke for the first time, making her realize that Tangas's second was actually a girl around her age. As a matter of fact, she and Octavia spent most of the meeting eye-contesting.

It wasn't that Tangas was stupid or against the alliance, Clarke soon realized. Only, his clan was what counted the most to him, and being unable to fight to protect it was terrible for him. All that he wanted was to get back to his lands with an army and defend his people from the silver-eyed.

Still, whether he had good reasons or not to be almost openly defying her, the result was the same; he was dangerous. To the alliance, to the Sky people.

It was after her meeting with him that she had started to really incarnate what they all took her for, the Sky Princess, the Commander of death. She hadn't planned it; it had begun randomly, with the birds.

From what Clarke got by the explanations of the leader they chose, one kid who wasn't part of their team had tried to pass for one of them and to carry a message; he had been caught by the others, and –well, he came home in the middle of the night, crying and covered of mud, and not one of the birds confessed anything. General opinion was that they had threw him in a ditch behind the Arch and stopped him from getting out for a while. The birds were seriously scolded, but that didn't seem to hold any meaning -to be honest, Octavia's clear hilarity at the way they solved their problem didn't help- until Clarke told them that if they ever pulled anything like that again, they could forget about birding around immediately, and that no matter what the problem was, they could not solve it by being violent to other people. She only meant that they should have talked to the other kid, but the children set their minds on trying to figure out a solution for the said problem, and if she didn't know which one came with the idea, what she did know was that within few days, her all messenger team was showing warpaints.

She was with Octavia when they first spotted one of them, proudly walking around, barely more discreet than if he had been screaming his job to everyone in his way. Most people of the Arch would only assume that the kids were just playing, but still, Clarke couldn't have children wandering among possibly hostile grounders while wearing warpaints. They had done a good job about it, she had to admit it: they had found a sky blue shade of paint, and if it was obvious that they had painted on each other's faces with more enthusiasm than expertise, it still had a recognizable two-wings shape, joined on the nose and deployed on the rest of the face, covering eyes and cheekbones with bright blue. They all had to wash it off and promise not to do it again, and in general, to stick to orders and avoid initiatives –and to be certain, to give Clarke and Octavia what was left on the paint they used.

Once it was all over, Clarke felt Octavia's look weigh on her in a familiar manner. The two girls had been spending a lot of time together, since Octavia was accompanying her in her meetings with all the chiefs of the clans. Grounders were used to see leaders accompanied by few warriors, or at least by their seconds, and since Clarke didn't have one of those and didn't care to bring Kane's soldiers to her meetings, had recruited Octavia instead. In that time, she had learned to read the girl's reactions better. Including the silent staring that meant that she wouldn't stay silent for long.

"-What is it?" She asked, going ahead of the girl.

-What they did was reckless, I agree with you, but it might not be such a bad idea.

-Paint targets on their faces? The oldest one of them is twelve, Octavia.

-No, not on them, of course. But on the right persons, it would be a symbol, not a target. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get our own war paints."

Clarke stiffened. "-We're not grounders.

-We live on the ground, Clarke. We're not skyers either. Plus, unless you're planning to move out, this is where we leave, now. On the Coalition's lands. That means we have to play by their rules, and this would mean a lot. They don't trust us partly because we're so different. Even our clothes scream "strangers". Well, not yours or mine, but you know what I mean. At least, our own war paints would scream "Sky people" in their language.

-I don't know…

-Well, think about it. Hey, even the wings design was kinda cool."

She kept the pot of paint with her and didn't really gave a thought to Octavia's idea until she was back alone in her room. Only then, she thoughtfully considered the recipient. Somehow, this led her mind straight to Lexa and to the Commander's own war paints. Was it a regular design for the Commanders, or were her dark tears her personal mark? Yet something else she may never learn about her. Although maybe Octavia or Lincoln would know.

The wings on the faces of the birds had been rudimentary; the ones Clarke drew on her own face were in her usual style, detailed and precise –that wasn't something she would have time to do as carefully anytime, but it would be easy to draw them in a more stylized way. It was the symbol that mattered anyway. She hesitated a while in front of the mirror; she felt like something was missing. It was somehow beautiful, she thought; the blue seemed darker than it had in daylight, and suited her well; it made her look… a little scary. All in all, that wasn't a bad thing, considering the situation, but looking at her reflection, she couldn't see Clarke Griffin, daughter of Jake and Abby, the girl from the Arch, anymore.

Bellamy's surprise, the next day, was obvious; but Octavia, by his side, widely smiled at the side of the wings on Clarke's face.

« -Oh, that's good! I hope you saved some for me!

-Yeah. I think the wings are good, but if you want something that shows your Trikru-Skaikru allegiance, it's up to you.

-Wait, what? We're getting war paints, now? What are we doing, here?" Bellamy protested as his sister took the pot of paint from Clarke.

"-I don't know what _you_'re doing, but I'm about to spend the day showing to grounder leaders that I'm in charge over them, so yeah, I'm getting war paints.

-This isn't us. You said it yourself, we're not grounders.

-Speak for yourself," Octavia intervened before Clarke could answer. "-Clarke, now you really look like the Sky Princess. That's really good.

-I thought you hated the title.

-I'm not overly fond of it, nor of Commander of death" -Clarke winced at the words-"-but they're useful. They respect you. You've got to keep it that way."

She met with three of the chiefs that day: Wundar, leader of the Grassland People, Elissa of the Snow Plains and Artaras, chief of the Farmer Clan. The Snow plains shared a frontier with the Ice Nation, although it didn't go as far north as Nia's lands. Elissa's people had never had to fight the Mountain Men, being too far away to fear the reaping, and on those lands, Clarke's victory over them didn't have the meaning it had for the Trikru. Even Lexa's authority, if it was respected, didn't have the same weight in the Nordic clans – but Elissa's lands hadn't been under attack of the Overseas Men either, and contrary to some of the chiefs, she didn't have people in immediate danger- which meant that she had no interest in going against Lexa's orders. She made clear, though, that if the Commander wasn't back by the second moon of winter as she was supposed to, she would head back for the Snow Plains with her army and planned her defense from there.

The second moon was only for weeks away, and the Sky people had no way to know if Lexa's team had made it to Polis and were still on schedule or if… if _anything _else happened. And among those who were starting to get impatient, Elissa was one of the moderate. Wundar and his second Ziane were worse. The Grasslands had been plagued by several Wastelands, and just leaving for Camp Jaha had already been a huge sacrifice for the chief. Having left his people and being forced to stay here waiting was insufferable to him. At some point, Clarke started to wonder what the hell Lexa had been thinking when she decided to leave. Yes, by going all the way to Polis, she could defend all those people the Clans leaders were worrying about, but the leaders had no way to be certain of this, and they were basically a pile of dynamite ready to explode, at this point. If only one of them got tired of waiting, it would send everything on fire. They needed a Commander to federate and canalize them –to control them. But said Commander was currently wandering in the wilderness, practically offering herself to Alie.

She interrupted Wundar as he was starting to yell at her.

"-What did you just say?

-You've heard me, girl. All those wusses might be afraid of you, but I know exactly what you are –just a girl who's been lucky and pretty enough to get in the Commander's pants and-"

Clarke's reaction came unexpected by both of them –maybe he didn't see it coming precisely because she had no idea herself that she was going to do this.

There was a cracking noise when her fist hit the bone of his nose. She felt it break, as she gritted her teeth in an attempt to contain the pain in her hand –protesting against the bone-to-bone impact. Wundar took a step back, more of surprise than pain, blood pouring all over his face. Octavia stepped in front of Clarke, forcing Ziane to stay away from the two leaders.

"-I'll let this pass –once. Do not ever disrespect me or the Commander again, otherwise you'll see exactly why the rest of your people is afraid of me.

-You think that scares me? I had kill marks all over my back before you were even born! I could have you killed here and now and get away with it!

-Then why don't you? If you're so certain that you wouldn't be taken down by my people in minutes, that you wouldn't be tied to a trunk and tortured to death, that the Commander wouldn't punish your people for your traitory – if you're so sure that the slayer of the Mountain is so easy to kill and that you wouldn't end up like all those who tried –why don't you? Why aren't you coming for me instead of staring at me? Wanna give it a try? I'm all yours."

They stood still for a few seconds, eyes locked into each other's, as Octavia and Ziane both stayed ready to intervene. Then, Clarke broke the contact, looking down at him from head to toe, then back to his face.

"-Yeah. I thought so. This was the last time you talked to me as anything less than a Commander, are we clear on that?"

He breathed heavily through his teeth, and for a second she thought he was gonna snap. She didn't let anything show, kept a look full of contained anger at him until he spoke again.

"-Yes, Skai Prisa.

She nodded. "-We're done for today. Be in the Council room tomorrow –without weapons."

Octavia waited until they were out of ear reach, but not a second more, to comment.

"-Ok, wow, Clarke! You've actually got me scared in there! What was… What did you plan in case he wouldn't let go?"

Clarke looked briefly at her, without answering. Octavia's face changed. "-You had a plan, right? You didn't just go into this on a bluff?

-I was… pretty confident he would back off.

-Pretty conf… Clarke, he could have killed us both! You don't get in a will contest with a grounder chief if all you have on your side is a scary look! What would you have done if he had hit you back?

-Hoped you would run fast enough to get help, I guess."

Octavia stopped altogether, blocking her way. "-Clarke…

-I know. I didn't plan this, okay? But we can't have them think what he's thinking. We need to get them under control, and there aren't so many ways to achieve this.

-Well then at least let me pick few warriors to come with us on meetings, just so you've got the hand to match your stand.

-I don't think that's a good idea. As much as I can, I want to deal with them one-to-one, not as in a forces contest. This was an exception.

-You wish. But you don't know if others won't pull something like that too, and there sure are some that won't let you get away with what you just did.

-Then we'll handle them. But I want us to talk as reasonable persons, not engage in a contest before even speaking a word."

Octavia shook her head. "-Frankly, Clarke, I can't figure out if I should be impressed or worried by all this new… attitude that you've got going on.

-There is no attitude, Octavia. I'm just doing what I have to do to keep us alive."

Artaras was easier, meaning that she didn't have to get into a confrontation. However, he wasn't so confidant in Lexa's return either, and as Elissa, was set on waiting the exact time order by the Commander and leave as soon as he could. If Lexa wasn't back in time, or back at all, Clarke thought once more, they were screwed. She never should have left to begin with. To accompany this now familiar thought, the also now familiar headache started to creep right behind her eyes, spreading fast. Octavia's voice seemed to come to her through a haze –she was talking about the War Council.

"-Don't wait for me, I have to swing by the infirmary," Clarke lied. She would never make it through an entire session without the others noticing something. She needed her pair of pills –maybe even more, she guessed. She had started to notice that it wasn't only the intensity of the pain that was increasing –it also grew faster every time.

She practically collapsed over the toilet of her bathroom, just few minutes later. Every one of her heartbeats was triggering streaks of pain so brutal that they blurred her vision. Clinging to the seat, she threw up several times, still feeling too nauseous to get up afterwards. She wasn't so sure she would stand on her legs anyway. She had to, though, if only to get the morphine pills hidden under her mattress. Her room had never seemed so big that when she turned her head to gauge the distance between the bathroom and her bed. She groaned and let her head fall back against the seat. It would only get worse with every second she'd spent here, and the relief would be so fast to come when she'd have taken the pills, but god, how hard to cross that distance seemed! The thought occurred to her that maybe she wouldn't cross it. Maybe she would just stay here, unable to get up, and if no one came –and there was no reason for anyone to come before a while- she would just sit and cry of pain until she'd pass out, and maybe she'd never wake up. Only few feet away from those damn pills.

Through the waves of paint the thought acted as an electroshock and she straightened up –she had been leaning against the toilet, almost collapsed on the floor, which she noticed only when she tried to get up –and failed.

_Come on. Come on, it's right there. Be strong._ Those last words came with Lexa's voice. That was probably not what she had meant, but it applied to that situation as well, after all. If she couldn't get up, well, there would be no one to see her crawl her way to the bedroom. By the time she finally got her hands on the pack of morphine, her nose was bleeding abundantly and had stained to the front of her coat. She swallowed two pills at once, and after a very brief hesitation, a third one. She leaned against her bed, sighing with relief. Barely a minute later, the pain had already lessened to a vague throbbing in her head –she could without difficulty understand that people could get addicted to morphine. The feeling of the pain being suddenly muted, erased, was divine. She had been careless. She knew that the headaches came stronger and faster, yet she had kept her pills in her room, possibly out of her reach. If it had started while she was still in the grounder camp… She had to keep it with her, now. She had to… Her heart skipped a beat, which sent a last sting of dying pain in her head. She had, before anything else, to get a new pack of pills. The current one was down to six, which wouldn't last her long. And she needed to clean herself from all the blood before getting to the War Council.


	23. Chapter 23

They had crossed a third Wasteland the day before; by that time, Lexa was getting worried about Leal. They absolutely needed her. If she failed them before Polis, they would have to send Zeke in her place, and risking the life of the only healer was never a smart move. Especially with the villagers they had took under their protection: some were hurt, few children were sick. In any other situation, endangering Zeke wouldn't have been as unconceivable; there were villages along the way, therefore available healers. But the path they were following was strewed with Wasteland that had made villagers desert their lands. She was afraid they wouldn't meet a single living soul until the surroundings of Polis. Which meant that Zeke and Leal were both irreplaceable. And Leal wasn't doing well.

Shaïra was already in the tent when she entered for the night, but not asleep yet – she would have woke up at Lexa's entrance anyway. Behind Lexa, back in the camp, one of the youngest children started to scream, one of those piercing cries that only babies manage. Lexa shivered. That was never a good sound. It reminded her of dead villages after battle where the only survivors were the victorious warriors and the children too young to fight, wandering in the ruins of their homes and screaming of pain and terror. Shaïra noticed her trouble -for a change- and got up.

"-He has a fever," she explained. "-It's hard when they're so young."

Lexa didn't answer. She didn't need to be reminded that things were hard on her people. She started to get the pieces of her armor off –only started, because as usual, Shaïra couldn't wait to serve her in anyway and took care of the rest of it. Although it was sometimes annoying, Shaïra's behavior had its perks for Lexa. She barely had to order anything for it to be done.

"-You're so tensed," Shaïra muttered after taking off the shoulder piece. Lexa, who had felt like the relief of this weight had actually relaxed her, wondered about this comment. Regardless of its relevance, this was the first time Shaïra felt confident enough to make that kind of observation. Except… Well, the first time since they parted back in Polis, at least. She suddenly felt Shaïra's hands on her back –hadn't she realized quickly enough that the girl was only offering a massage, chances were that she would have reacted very violently. By all means, touching her by surprise was a very stupid move. But she did remember in time that the girl was good with those. She had proved it before, and despite thinking that this was a bad idea, Lexa enjoyed the feeling of Shaïra's hands gently pressing on her muscles so much that she finally decided to let her do as proposed. She _had _been awfully tensed, after all.

She closed her eyes, sitting on the bed –even if Maykl was guarding the entrance of the tent, she didn't want anyone to have a chance to see them. It was enjoyable, but lacked of dignity nonetheless. Shaïra's hands had found their way under her shirt, expertly caressing and pressing her skin, carefully avoiding the still painful wounds from the attack of the silver-eyed.

After few minutes, Lexa let out a sigh of contentment –but tensed back in an instant when Shaïra let her hands venture beyond her lower back. The girl pressed herself against her, caressing her legs, the inside of her thighs, working her way up so there could be no mistake about her intentions. Lexa felt her heartbeat and breathing accelerate, as she became almost painfully aware of Shaïra's breasts and stomach pressed against her back, of her hands between her legs, all separated from her skin only by a thin layer of cloth. Shaïra started to kiss her neck, first softly, then, as Lexa let her head fall back to offer her more exposed skin, with more heat. She felt the girl's lips leaving a trail of kisses, all the way from her neck to the line of her jaw, to the corner of her mouth –she let out a slight moan when Shaïra, instead of kissing her, softly bit her lower lip. If anything, that girl knew how to please her, she briefly thought, before Shaïra moved to face her, kissing her for real, this time, her hands gently pushing her on her back.

Her legs encaging Lexa's, she took off both her shirt and bandeau bra in one swift move, offering Lexa an unspoiled sight of her body. Her dark hair spread over her shoulders and back contrasted in a seizing way with her exceptionally fair skin. Lexa's mouth went dry as her eyes ran across the girl's bare upper body, from her muscled stomach –she had a spot of white and wrinkled skin on the left side, memory of a cauterized wound- to her chest, her small and firm breasts crowned by pink nipples. Lexa straightened up, and slowly ran her hands on Shaïra's hips, before closing them on her back, as the girl leaned to her to kiss her again. She tucked her hands under Lexa's shirt, to make it pass over her head –Lexa shut her eyes when finally feeling Shaïra's skin against hers, and lowered her head just enough to kiss the girl's breasts –kissing and sucking and caressing. Shaïra was gently pushing, and Lexa let herself fall back on the fur of the bed, her lips locked to Shaïra's. The girl, with a tantalizing slowness, went down Lexas's body, her mouth stopping just above the line of Lexa's pants. Lexa slightly arched, thrilling with anticipation.

And then, as she fisted her hand on the fur, savoring the contact of Shaïra's lips, of her hands nicely removing her pants, an all different face flashed in her mind. Instead of Shaïra's green eyes and dark hair, she unwillingly pictured blue eyes and sunny blonde hair. It brutally took her out of mood, and she jerked away just as Shaïra was beginning to kiss the inside of her thighs. The girl raised a surprised look at her. Despite its pleasantness, the all thing suddenly seemed completely wrong to Lexa. This wasn't what she wanted. She was just settling for a purely physical pleasure –that could actually ruin everything. Maybe she had destroyed any chance she had, that night at Mount Weather, but maybe –just maybe- Clarke would still consider leaving her one. If so, what Lexa was doing right now would only hurt her –again- and effectively ruin even more Lexa's hopes. She wanted a chance. And _this _wasn't worth ruining it. Mistaking about her reaction, Shaïra continued, and Lexa brutally moved –actually missing from almost nothing to push the other girl out of the bed.

"-Stop!"

"-Heda? What… Did I do something wrong?

-Just… Get dressed. And go back to your bed."

Shaïra straightened up, suddenly looking very vulnerable, partly because she was naked to the waist up, but mostly because of her expression, her look both hurt and interrogative. Lexa took pity.

"-You didn't do anything wrong. It… I don't want to, that's it.

-But you were…"

Lexa's look became icy.

"-Don't presume too much."

Shaïra stiffened and muttered apologies, getting off the bed with as much dignity as she could manage. To her dismay, Lexa was practically certain that the girl was holding back tears. She sat back, retrieving her clothes, as her lieutenant got her own shirt back. Both of them stayed dead silent the next minutes. The first thing to break that silence was a new cry from the sick baby; both girls turned to the entrance of the tent.

"-Has Zeke even checked on him?" Lexa asked.

"-Yes, Heda. But I can go ask him to do it again, if you want me to.

-Yes. See that the child has everything he needs to get better."

Shaïra complied immediately. Lexa could see that she was anxious to get away. She couldn't blame her.

She shouldn't have let this happen, she thought, settling under the furs for the night. Shaïra seemed to truly care, which was likely trouble, and on top of that, Lexa was now dying to have sex, and had no way to act on it. She turned in the bed, facing the rest of her tent, wondering what Clarke was doing at the instant. Maybe she was in the Council room with her friends, or maybe already sleeping –she visualized Clarke sleeping, most of the time on her side, her head resting on her hand even if she had a pillow, the fluttering eyelids and occasional twitch of the mouth while she was dreaming… Of course, most of the times she had seen Clarke dream had ended in screams and panic in the middle of the night, but it had sometimes been peaceful –once, Clarke had even mumbled something about a deer, from what Lexa got, and had had a half-smile.

She sighed sadly. There was still five days or so until Polis –damn this weather- plus a necessary time in the city, and then all the way back to Camp Jaha. The trip back would be considerably shorter, since the team wouldn't make the detour to get to the Wastelands, and wouldn't be slowed down by civilians, but all in all, there was around a month before the return to Camp Jaha, which would make them arrive… Yes, a full week before the end of the second moon of winter. In time to fulfill her promise to the Sky Princess.

…

Leal unwillingly let out a slight cry when she felt the horse stop under her. It meant that she would have to get off of it, stand and walk, and eat, and stay awake until the Commander decided it was time to leave again. She was in constant pain when riding, but at least, the grounder whose horse she shared was doing the hard part, and she just had to let time pass, without effort, slumped against her. Most of the time, since the last Wasteland they encountered, after few dozens of minutes, she managed to slip into a half unconsciousness that rested her.

Only two days more before Polis, she reminded herself. She kept telling herself that, she had been keeping track of the time left for a week. They would stay few days in Polis, and that would probably be very busy days for the Commander and her lieutenants, but for Leal, it would finally be a time to rest. She could sleep in a real bed, wouldn't have to get up, instead of being forced to travel. Zeke insisted that her state wasn't due to irradiation, but directly to her wounds; she had serious burns that could have heal if she had let them time to. Thing was, she didn't have time. Every few days of their journey, there was a new Wasteland, and she was the only one who could neutralize them. The first had been hard enough, but every time was even more painful than the previous one, because her skin was already so damaged it goddamned hurt all the time, and it was that same skin that had to endure new waves of radiation every time. Burns on burns on burns, and Zeke could do everything he knew as a healer, there was no way she could actually get better at this rate. He kept giving her meds to fight infection, which apparently was a big risk when it came to burns, but several weeks after the first Wasteland, she constantly had fever anyway. And it hurt, it hurt so much!

Sometimes, she found herself resenting him, despite his good will and all the efforts he put in helping her. Because he was a Sky person too; he could have taken her place in the Wastelands. It wasn't fair that he was perfectly fine while Leal had to constantly stop herself from bursting in tears of pain and exhaustion. She knew it was stupid, and mean, to think like that, but sometimes she just couldn't help it. She couldn't help feeling angry at everyone around. All of the grounders in the team, who for sure were full of respect to her, by now, pissed her off, because behind all that deference, they all were glad that she was the one having to face this instead of them. In a way, it wasn't really blamable; she would have been relieved as well if someone else was to take the job; but she was hurting too much to even consider that.

Most of all, even though she knew it really was irrational, she was angry at the Commander. That was because they had crossed numerous villages deprived of their inhabitants, numerous groups of silver-eyed, numerous Wasteland surrounded by death; they had come across places where hundreds of cadavers were rotting, probably murdered by the silver-eyed; when she did manage to sleep through the fever and the pain, Leal would dream of atrocities every night, of those sights of death and the smell of blood and dead flesh would fill her nightmares; but the Commander, never, ever, showed any sign of emotion. It was her people that were being brainwashed or massacred all across the country, after all, there was possibly people that she personally knew, for god's sake, but not once she seemed even a bit shaken.

She managed to stay silent when the grounder woman helped her out of the horse, even though her touch on her burns was agonizing –she tried not to touch her where she was hurt, quite uselessly since she was burned on the majority of her upper body. She was shaking. That came as a bonus with the fever, which managed to make her feel uncomfortably hot and freezing at the same time. Few meters away, Shaïra got off of her own horse, and after a quick talk with the Commander, came to meet her. The girl was possibly the only person around who wasn't the subject of Leal's anger. Actually, she was even grateful to her. When the other grounders ventured in the Wastelands only when compelled to by the Commander, Shaïra had voluntarily led them there every time; and even if she couldn't help her, at least she seemed to get how hard it was for Leal.

Days ago, they had arrived in sight of a Wasteland; before they started to prepare for the deactivation, Shaïra had given her one of those grounder pep talk (which usually consisted in reminding the poor bastard they were trying to cheer up that no matter in what kind of suffering he was going to die, at least he would die for a good reason), which didn't change anything to what Leal would have to face, but at least it was something. There wasn't a safe bunker in the center of this Wasteland; the core had been floating in the open, hidden to their sights only by few crumbled walls; it had made the area even more dangerous for the grounders, and Leal had had to walk most of the distance by herself, leaving the rest of the team behind. She turned back only once, briefly, and what she saw was all the grounders safely far away from her, except for Shaïra, firmly waiting as close as she could, waiting for Leal to come back.

The burning of the atmosphere had become insufferable real quick, and even before she could get close of the core, she had felt her wounds starting to bleed again. Only meters away, the air started shining as it always did around the cores, literally melting her suit; she got out of it fast enough to avoid ending up with melted fabric on her skin on top of everything, and the silver air enveloped her. It was so intense that the first seconds, her brain didn't even register the pain. She clumsily took few steps back, before it finally hit –a pain so huge it seemed to leap through her entire body, trailing fire and filling every inch of her with agony. When she fell to the ground, screaming again and again, the only coherent thought in her mind was that hopefully, one of the grounders would be brave enough to come to her and put her out of her misery like they did to their friend in the first Wasteland. She blacked out after what seemed like an eternity.

She woke up lying on a fur bed, without the slightest pain or discomfort, which could either mean that she was dead and really about to get reincarnated, or that she was under a certainly illegal dose of painkillers. Zeke was next to her, taking care of a burn on her hand –she was wrapped up in bandages, she realized.

In the tent with them were Shaïra and the Commander, who for once seemed to be actually feeling something –that something being annoyance. She was talking to her lieutenant when Leal woke up, but the both of them noticed quickly and turned to her. Shaïra's arm and right shoulder were bandaged. Leal sat in the bed, despite Zeke's protestations, to face the two grounders. She had no illusions about the amount of pain she'd be in when the meds would wear off, but for now, she felt about right and intended to make the better of it.

"-Leal. We thought about a way for you to approach this core without…

-Wait, oh, wait! You want to send me back there _now_? I just…." The sole memory of the pain took her breath away, and she backed away, as much as she could, from the Commander. "-I mean, I'm obviously not qualified for this," She heard her voice get higher without being able to stop herself. The Commander was watching her, and something was telling Leal that the girl had already sent dozens to their death with this exact look on her face. She struggled to keep her breath normal, but it was a lost cause. "-You can't force me to go back!

-Hey, Leal, calm down. You're not going anywhere right now," Zeke said, getting himself a brief look from the Commander.

"-Well, that's not what she's thinking!" Leal protested. "-Please, don't make me…"

Then, Shaïra had told something in Trigedasleng to the Commander, who nodded and stepped back, letting her lieutenant approach Leal. The Sky girl watched her kneel next to the bed, swallowing back her tears.

"-Leal, listen to me. We are not going to force you.

-If you're waiting for me to volunteer again, you might as well get yourself another Sky person! I almost fried to death, there! And it looks like you did too, why… You were supposed to be far enough to not get burn, don't you see what… This core is too powerful for us to…

-I don't think it was more powerful than the others, just harder to reach. We can do this.

-You mean I can get myself burnt to dust while you're watching from afar!

-Hum, Leal…" Zeke mumbled.

"-What?" She barked at him. "-What?

-It's just, hum, actually, Shaïra was far enough to be safe, she got burned reaching for you. She got close from the core to get you and bring you back. I, hum, just thought you should know."

Leal stared at him for a second before turning to Shaïra.

"-Is that true?

-I wasn't gonna let you die.

-But you could have… How did you even get so close? My god, this could have killed you! You seriously did that for…"

This time, she couldn't stop tears from running down her cheeks. She was mortified to cry in front of the Commander, but the idea of Shaïra forcing her way to her, suffering to get to her and save her life, upset her to no end.

The grounder wiped Leal's tears in a move so light and fast that it seemed like nothing happened.

"-We do what we have to do, Leal. No matter the personal cost."

She got back on her feet, leaving a Leal with now dry eyes sitting in the bed. The Sky girl took a deep breath, before raising her head to face the Commander.

"-So, this way to get to the core. What is it?"

They had actually succeeded to get close to it and neutralize it as well as the others only a day after their first tentative; but this was the last one Leal would get close from. Even the Commander had to see that she was in no condition to face another one.

…

Her mother was on watch in the infirmary when, before joining the War Council, Clarke got there in her search for new pills of morphine. She would have preferred to deal with Jackson –he never required as much explanation about her presence here as her mother. With that, Clarke had barely talked to her mother those last weeks. She kept avoiding her, without thinking about it. She wasn't deliberately pushing her away, to quote Bellamy, but her presence was always source of stress for Clarke, lately; it surely wasn't her mother's intention, but she constantly seemed to be silently disapproving every one of her moves. If there was one thing Clarke didn't need, it was for her mother to be all judgmental.

There was a lot of sick people, mostly due to the harsh weather, which, as bad as it was, provided her with a pretext to be here. Her mother didn't answer immediately when Clarke asked about the state of those people, though. She started by reproaching her to not have come sooner, to not let her know more about the War Council's work and by the time she got to the "I've barely seen you this month" part, Clarke had already stopped listening.

"-Mom, I have to go in five minutes, could you just…

-You just got there!

-Well I'm not here to chat. I just need an update on our sick people and medical supplies before…

-You're doing too much, Clarke. When did you last took time just for yourself?"

Clarke blinked, not quite sure her mother really did ask her that. Was she even remotely in touch with reality?

-We could be under attack literally any minute, Mom, I don't… No one has time for themselves, right now.

-That's not true, Clarke. Your friends take time together to relax whenever they can. Why don't you too? They'd be glad to have you with them.

-Mooom! Don't you wanna set playdates while you're at it? Seriously, I don't have time for that! Can you please just tell me what I need to know?"

Her mother was prevented to answer by a patient calling her, and Clarke took profit of the few minutes Abby spent with him to quickly make her way through the meds –thankfully, she knew exactly where Jackson had put the ones she needed. When her mother came back, this time ready to spit the information Clarke was asking for, a new box of pills was stored safely in one of the inner pockets of her coat –the dark, thick, comforting coat the Lexa had gave her few weeks ago, and that she wore practically every day.

"-And what about those war paints?" her mother asked as Clarke was about to leave after finally obtaining answers to her questions.

-What about them?

-Why are you wearing this, Clarke?"

Clarke had to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

"-Why are you trying to look like them?

-It's not that. We need to speak their language, Mom, if we want them to accept us. And we need them to accept us.

-It doesn't mean becoming one of them.

-What would you know about any of this? Your sole contribution to the alliance was…" She interrupted herself, realizing that she had raised her voice and was about to snap at her mother for almost nothing. "-I have to go.

-Clarke.

-What?" She hadn't tried to hide the annoyance in her voice, this time.

"-Do you know what day it is?"

She found herself speechless for an instant. "-The day of the week? No idea." She pretty much had forgotten about the very concept of a week, really. She briefly hoped that the rest of the Archers were doing better than her when it came to the time passing, otherwise they would quickly lost track of anything resembling dates.

-No, the date.

-First half-moon of winter," she replied automatically. Which threw a silence between them.

"-What?" Her mother said after a while of awkward staring.

"-Nothing. No, I don't know. What day is it?"

Her mother told her. That led to another moment of silent staring. "-Yes?" Clarke finally asked.

-Doesn't it ring a bell?

-Should it?"

The look on her mother's face clearly told her that yes, it should have –she was annoyed with her right now, but it still made her feel guilty –what had she forgot? A birthday? The idea that there were still such a thing as a birthday triggered a bitter laugh, which she held back with difficulty. There would be much more to celebrate if they were to commemorate deathdays. Anyway, her mother was born in summer. And even if it had been that, there was much worse things than forgetting something like this. It wasn't worth feeling bad over it.

"-Mom? I don't… I don't know, what am I supposed to remember? I'm not gonna get it, so, just…

-Never mind. Go do what you have to."

Clarke lingered at the door few seconds, hesitating to go into this for good and talk to her mother, but she decided to get to the Council room instead. She didn't have time for this.

Octavia had apparently already told everybody about what happened with Wundar, and while it was okay for most of their friends, Bellamy was apparently freaking out. Freaking out so much that Clarke had to talk to him alone rather than starting to argue in front of everyone in the room, and the Council session turned into a ridiculously heated fight. She tried to stay calm for as long as she could, but at some point she snapped too and they ended up screaming at each other –without making any sense half of the time, really. It had started as two pretty reasonable different opinions, but by the time Octavia finally interrupted them, they both were too angry to really be defending any opinion –it was just about who would have the last word.

She yelled at the both of them like they were kids on a playground, and, calming herself a little, Clarke realized that they indeed weren't more mature that that, right now.

"-What the hell is wrong with you two? Do you realize we could hear you almost all the way to the outside?

-Well, if Clarke…" Bellamy started as Clarke was spitting something similar.

-I don't care!" Octavia shouted. "-Are you both five years old? I don't care who started or whose fault it is, stop it!

-She hit one of the chiefs!

-And you think you're gonna make that unhappen if you yell loud enough? And seriously, Clarke, couldn't you stop this? He's a dumbass, but aren't you a little smarter than this?

-I'm a what now?

-You know exactly what I said. I'm serious, Clarke. Losing it on Wundar, that was actually a good way to shut him up, but losing it on one of us…

-I've barely…

-Barely what? Kane's coming to see you, what do you think he would have thought if he had found you two arguing like that?

-What does he want?

-Don't know, didn't ask, was busy avoiding you to look like two idiots. Now, shake each other's hand or something, and next time you disagree, find a constructive way to fix it, for god's sake!"

She stormed out, leaving Clarke and Bellamy alone again, now a little embarrassed by their respective outbursts. Bellamy cleared his throat, and she raised her eyes at him.

"-She's kind of right, I guess," She said.

-Er, yeah. I, I didn't mean to…

-Me neither. I don't know what came over me."

They looked at each other, and she grinned at him. Their all anger seemed as ridiculous now as it had been fiery just minutes ago. He stayed serious for a second, then finally giggled – and for the first time in a very long time, she laughed along with him.

That night, she dreamed about her parents, back on the Arch; she was just a kid in the dream, and for some reason, there was chocolate cakes all over the room, which seemed out of place even as she was still dreaming; there never had been any on the Arch. It blurred in a haze of voices and colors, and ended up as a nightmare where she saw Derna fire her gun again and again, but instead of Thelonious Jaha, it was her mother that was killed every time, her blood reddening Clarke's face all at once. She woke up crying, and jumped for the light, terrified to stay in the dark.

It was her parent's goddamned wedding anniversary.

Her heart skipped a beat when she realized why her mother had looked so hurt when she hadn't recognized the date. They had celebrated it every year, and even in the months Clarke had spent in a cell, after her father's death, it had been one of the occasions when her mother had managed to visit her and they had spent the day together.

It wasn't past midnight yet. If she went to find her mother, maybe she could still… But did it really matter? It surely did to her mother, but… This was another life. What good could it do to keep clinging to old rituals? It didn't mean anything down here.

….

"-Mom? It's me."

The door of the room didn't open immediately, and she worried that she might have interrupted her mother's sleep. She hesitated to knock one more time, but Abby appeared before she did.

"-Have I woke you up?

-I wasn't sleeping yet. Is there something wrong, honey?"

-No, I just… I'm sorry I forgot, Mom. It just didn't click, I didn't mean to…

-Oh, Clarke."

She went to hug her daughter, and Clarke had to force herself to stay still and not push her away. Those last weeks, she had been less and less fond of physical contacts, especially from the people close to her. They were too… nice. Too soft, and comforting against her will, and she didn't want to be comforted. She didn't want to be close of anyone.

"-You're not mad at me?

-Of course not, Clarke. I'm just glad that you came."

She stepped back a little and gestured her to come in. "-Will you stay a while? I think we could use some catching up.

-Oh. Hum…" Well, she could hardly pretend that she had people to meet at this hour. "-Sure."

It didn't go so bad, her mother was calm and mostly happy to see her, but Clarke still couldn't wait to get out of the room. It wasn't that she didn't love her, of course; the same went for her friends, she cared about them more than she could have imagined just few months ago. It was just too hard to be both their friend and their leader. She needed to be reliable for them, to not be the scared and sad ball of guilt and self-hatred she really was. But they knew her. Unlike the grounders, they wouldn't see the Sky Princess, but Clarke. And sometimes, she was so tempted to give up on all this role she was supposed to fill and really be just Clarke. In that, their attitude, even though they all meant good, was weakening her.

Being treated so gently also made her feel even guiltier about everything, and God knew she didn't need that. None of them seemed to understand why she felt like that so strongly –even Bellamy; as he said, he would have preferred that things didn't end that way, but to him, the kill or be killed justification was enough to take the edge off that guilt. In a weird way, since she had a death count higher than anyone else Clarke knew, Lexa was the one who understood the most, who understood the price of every life taken, the weight of it.

And Lexa, contrary to her mother, never tried to hug her when she didn't want to be, she thought with a contained anger as Abby took her in her arms once again before she left. There was other ways to express affection, for God's sake!

She didn't go straight back to her room afterwards, but instead stayed a while outside of the metallic structure of the Arch, watching the falling snow. Even though the Archers kept removing it, there had constantly been a layer of white powder all over the camp for the last few weeks. It was anything but practical; nevertheless, none of the Sky people complained about it. It was simply too beautiful. It made the night clear as Clarke walked through the camp, and she enjoyed every minute –that was one of the rare things that managed to make her smile since she got back. Just walking in the snow while it tirelessly fell from the sky. The grounder fires enlightened the night as well, but those she didn't enjoy so much.


	24. Chapter 24

Lexa handed the calumet back to Shaïra, her head slightly spinning. It was how it always started for her. They were now travelling on the Mist Clan territory, were only few days away from Polis, and Lexa was starting to get impatient. It was usual when she was around her city. Shaïra put the calumet between her lips, but interrupted herself before breathing in and raised her head. Lexa followed her look to see Leal stumbling their way. It was fortunate that the fourth one had been the last Wasteland on their way, because it wasn't certain that the Sky girl would have handled one more. Shaïra moved on the trunk to let space to Leal and offered her the calumet.

"-How are you doing?" She asked as Leal thanked her and breathed in with this expression of relief she had had every time the two grounders had shared starleaf with her. The answer took few seconds to come.

"-I just can't wait to get to Polis."

Lexa considered her. She had lost weight, and was constantly shivering with fever since the day of the fourth Wasteland. When Shaïra and the rest of the team brought her back, Lexa had first thought that she was dead –before she heard her whimper, in pain even through unconsciousness. And even now, whenever Lexa turned to the warrior Leal was riding with, she had a second of doubt –most of the time, the Sky girl looked like she only held on the horse because the warrior made her.

She only realized that Shaïra and Leal had kept talking while she was thinking and that she hadn't followed the discussion at all when the calumet went back to her after the two girls had it.

"-No, he's having a hard time coping, I think," Leal was saying to Shaïra.

"-Who?" Lexa asked.

"-Zeke," answered the Sky girl. "-The warriors hurt, it was easy for him, it was mostly superficial wounds, but he's no really equipped for the sick villagers, and he's not taking it well. The kid who died last night, especially, it… It's hard on him.

"-Oh. Yes. He is a good healer though. He should know that."

She tried not to linger on the topic of the child. It happened. Babies weren't strong. But he had seemed better, the fever that made him keep everyone awake at night by screaming his lungs out had lessened. It wasn't even the radiations or the silver, it was just the kind of disease a child gets from being too cold and hungry –because his parents were fleeing, because Lexa hadn't protected them. Not in time. She gritted her teeth and angrily breathed in a long –very long- toke which went straight to her head. Those things happened.

….

The last before their arrival to Polis, a dream woke her up as brutally as a blow, and she found herself sitting in her bed, panting – the darkness of the tent seemed peaceful and safe compared to what she had been looking at mere seconds ago. Shaïra was already awake; for once her constant attention didn't annoy Lexa. She would be a distraction, at least. As to make this thought wrong, to prove her that there could be no taking her mind of this horror, Clarke's tortured blue eyes lingered in her imagination, and those screams… Not screams of fear or pain, but cries and shrieks of someone whose mind's breaking, is being destroyed from the inside- the last screams she would utter before being turned forever.

This was just a nightmare, and not even an unexpected one, she told herself, as Shaïra, lighting a firelamp, asked her if she was all right. Unlike Clarke's, her dreams didn't mean anything, after all. Except that she was scared.

At her lack of answer, Shaïra softly muttered another question.

"-The Sky Princess, still?"

Lexa threw her the darkest look she could, and the girl stood it without flinching. That was exactly the kind of looks that had attracted Lexa the first time they met. There was something very Clarke-like in those determined eyes.

"-You are way over the line.

-My apologies, Heda. I was trying to find another way to help.

-Don't. I'm fine."

She wasn't. When Shaïra blew the light off, she stayed sitting in her bed, holding her knees against her chest, her face resting against her clenched fist. She couldn't stop obsessing about this dream, about Clarke, back in Camp Jaha. Was she alone, still? Dreaming terrible things too? Real terrible things?

She eventually fell back asleep, a sleep still disturbed by anguish, drifting off so slowly that she barely realized that she was falling back on her bed –the slight noises in the tent let her knew that Shaïra was still awake. She still was the second time Lexa woke up, this time screaming, from a vision of silver flames gnawing away her city, her lands, her people, leaving only mindless slaves and piles of rotting cadavers behind, ending her world in minutes; and laughing at her from her own throne, a faceless Alie didn't even bother killing her, leaving her the last survivor so she could contemplate the apocalyptic scale of her failure.

Shaïra didn't ask anything this time, but lit the lamp all the same. Lexa was still lying on her side, and their eyes met.

"-What?" She finally spat, as the other girl kept looking at her, seeming both sad and about to ask something –but no daring to speak.

"-I used to have nightmares all the time when I was younger. Every night. The clan was always at war, of course, that was the only way to live, but the Swamp Clan… You know as well as I do. They lived to kill. My brother and I saw our parents die. Swamp warriors skinned them alive and… Anyway, I couldn't sleep properly for years. I feared for my clan and my brother too much. And then, when I became our chief's second, a child, barely older than me, led an army against the monsters I kept dreaming about, and slayed them once and for all. She made years of fear disappear in just few weeks. This child, this Commander, whom I saw only from far away in battle, I believed then, and I believe now, that she can protect our people from any monster. From anything."

Lexa turned in the bed, showing only her back to Shaïra. Costia had had this kind of absolute faith in her; as much as it had helped her at the time, all that she knew now was how it ended for her lover. She realized that she was so tensed that her entire body was shaking. Shaïra must have noticed, she thought. As to confirm this, the girl left her own bed to get closer to her. Lexa's first reaction was to push her away, thinking that despite her rejection few nights sooner, Shaïra was trying to resume the relationship they had in Polis –tonight, this was the last thing she wanted, the last thing she would have wanted even without her maybe-something with Clarke. Tonight, all that she wanted was to be with Clarke –or Costia, or even Anya –any one of the few persons she had been able to open up to in her life. Tonight, the Commander needed comfort, support. It took her a handful of seconds to realize that this was exactly what Shaïra was offering her –the girl only wanted to hug her.

Lexa didn't push her away. She let her wrap her arms around her, shutting her eyes closed. The feeling of Shaïra's steady body made her realize how violently she was shaking, how messy her breathing was. No wonder the girl had been worried.

"-You're the greatest Commander this land ever had. The Overseas men should be ones seeing death in their dreams."

Lexa didn't answer, but clung to Shaïra's forearms, closed around her chest. She gritted her teeth and stiffened, trying to get a hold on herself. Without success, at first; but Shaïra's voice, her warm and firm embrace, finally relaxed her. The Mist girl kept muttering reassurances, which to Lexa's ears soon turned into an indistinct, soothing sound in the night. She eventually felt sleep win her over again and bent her kness, bringing her legs closer to her body. She always curled up to sleep –less when she wasn't alone, though. That, and the change of her breathing, which got deeper, calmer, more regular, must have left Shaïra think that she was sleeping for good, and right before she really lost grip on the world around her, she felt the girl unclench her arms and, very gently, stroke her hair. She unconsciously leaned in the touch. She really, really needed to put that girl back where she belonged, to set some limits. But not tonight. Because she always slept better in company, and because she couldn't remember to save her life the last time someone touched her with so much softness –so much tenderness.

She must have moved and turned at some point in her sleep, because she was facing Shaïra when, few hours later, she was awakened by the light of dawn piercing through the fabric of the tent. She was still in the girl's arms, and quite frankly, all over her. She must have moved _a lot_. For once, she mused, she had managed to wake up without waking her lieutenant as well. Her eyes ran along Shaïra's scar, that double tear in her skin that went from above her eyes to the left side of her jaw. She had been lucky not to lose her eye –it probably had been less than an inch away.

In spite of her annoyance at the girl's perpetual attention, Lexa had to admit that Shaïra was growing on her. It wasn't that she reciprocated the feelings that the Mist girl clearly had for her –for the better or the worst, that place was taken by one Sky Princess- but she was starting to feel some kind of affection for her. Enough to care whether she lived or died. She was starting to think of her as a –maybe a friend. When was the last time she had even used that word?

Dorian and Yara, the eldest daughters of Queen Luna, came to her mind.

She had been only thirteen, and Costia twelve, when they first met Luna in her sea-city (since the Queen never, ever left it), and the princesses were… How old, fifteen or sixteen for Dorian? And Yara was only a season younger than Lexa. She hadn't seen them in almost three years, by now. It was Costia who had really been close from them anyway, Costia who had fell in love with the sea-city, and Lexa had sent her there several times, as her ambassador. She would herself travel there almost every six seasons, she had until Costia's… Until that day. After that, she had only sent emissaries and never set foot there again. She knew she couldn't lay eyes on the sea-city or on Luna's fleet without being reminded way too harshly of her furious girl. Which meant that the last time she had seen both Dorian and Yara, she was only sixteen –and was an all-different person by then. No, even though they had shared parts of their youth, she could hardly count the two princesses as friends –this was only a fond memory of the time when she was still a child. And she had never been close enough of any of her people to consider any of them as a friend. There was few councilors she would be sorry to lose, the most efficient, loyal and smart ones, but no one she had an actual relationship with. No, this thing with Shaïra was new. New, and dangerous, and something from which nothing good could possibly come.

Shaïra woke up when Lexa softly disengaged herself from her arms and left the bed.

"-Get ready," Lexa said –less abruptly than usual. "-We'll break camp as soon as we can. I want you to make sure that Leal is all right until Polis, and when we get there, arrange for her to be taken care of. After that, you'll join me in the Assembly room of the palace."

…..

The weirdest of the grounders chiefs that Clarke met was without a doubt Sarita, the woman who led the Spirit Clan. First of all, part of the army was installed a little away from the rest of the camp, and Clarke had noticed that none of the grounders from the other clans ventured there.

Second of all, inside Sarita's tent, located at the exact center of her camp, burned a campfire. The fumes were so thick that the first seconds, Clarke thought she was gonna have to rush outside immediately to get some real air.

"-Breathe in," a calm voice reached her ears through the mist. Next to her, Octavia followed the advice, and Clarke heard her reach for air –she breathed only once before starting to cough, and one of the warriors in the tent quickly helped her outside as she was choking.

"-It's not for everyone," The same voice commented. Clarke couldn't even see the person it belonged to –the opening of the tent had provoked a very slight breeze that had moved the smoke enough for her to see a sitting form across the fire, but nothing more. "-Breathe in," the voice repeated. "-She is not hurt. You won't be either."

Clarke was nothing less than certain about this, especially after Octavia was taken out –her absence made her nervous. She had been counting on the brunette in case anything would go wrong, and now she was alone among the grounders. She couldn't let it show, though. She finally took a breath, hoping she wouldn't react as strongly as Octavia did.

The thick fog filled her lungs and she had an instant of sheer terror as its heats ran through her body –just a physical reaction to the sensation. She felt lighter with every intake of breath; light-headed, and with a weird tingling sensation in her limbs.

"-Good," appreciated the still unseen grounder. "-Come closer".

Clarke obeyed. She barely felt her feet touch the ground as she circumvented the fire. The woman was sitting cross-legged, looking at her with interest.

"-Sky Princess", the grounder greeted in Trigedasleng.

"-Sarita of the Spirit People," Clarke answered in the same language.

Without rising, the woman offered her hand to Clarke. The Sky girl took it, and Sarita made her sit down next to her. By this time, Clarke was already used to the modified air. She watched Sarita, waiting for her next move –the grounder had took the lead of the meeting with this unexpected greeting; despite this and what happened to Octavia, Clarke didn't even consider there could be danger. The grounder was watching her as well, frankly, as she could see what Clarke was thinking by looking into her eyes.

"-People have been talking of you, Princess. I know why you're here. You want to know where I stand in this alliance between our people.

-Among other things. You almost never came to our Council."

Voices were a little distorted in this atmosphere, or maybe it was just her mind that was clouded by the smoke she inhaled. Everything around them seemed to get blurry, but the woman in front of her was as clear of a vision as there could be. Clarke could see every detail of her with a precision she never experienced before.

"-No, I did not. And you never came here.

-Well, I'm here now. And I do want to know where you stand. Some of your people seem to think that the Commander's orders don't apply when she's away. Is that your opinion as well?

-Even the Commanders don't have authority on the spirits, Clarke of the Sky people.

-She'd feel differently about that, don't you think? Your clan is part of the Coalition, which means you _are _to follow her orders as well as any other clan."

Sarita watched her silently for an instant. "-I didn't say I wouldn't.

-That's what you just said.

-You're not listening carefully enough. I said I didn't have to. Not that I wouldn't.

-People rarely state that they don't have to follow someone's orders just to make a point," Clarke replied. –What do you intend to do?

-Nothing that should worry you. Our clan will follow the Commander in this war, as far as it will take us. Like you, she is favored by the spirits.

-What does that mean?

-This is not something that you can understand –for the time being, at least. Do not worry, child of the stars. We are allies."

Her hand reached Clarke's face and brushed it, as cautiously as she was touching an infinitely precious thing that could broke at the lighter touch. Clarke's first instinct was to back off, but something in the way she was looked at made her stay still.

"-You're on the verge," Sarita said, and Clarke knew exactly what she was talking about. "-This is a terrible thing, what She does to spirits. Yours is still fighting, but…

-How do you know that?" Clarke stopped her, her heart pounding in her chest. She sounded pathetically pleading, at least at her own ears. The woman didn't answer her question.

"-I can help a little, but this will not change anything – I do not have the power to save you from her."

For the first time, Sarita stood up, and got to the back of the tent, to retrieve a leather pouch. Clarke tried to join her, but the woman softly pushed her back on the ground, and she found herself kneeling in front of Sarita. She handed her the pouch –the leather was worn and soft, dark but not black, and felt nice under her fingers.

"-This will help when She tries to take over. Few pinches in a glass of water.

-How do I know this really is what you…

-You don't have to try. Just know that if I wanted you any harm, it would be done already."

She had asked by reflex, but she didn't believe that Sarita was lying. The woman offered her hand again, this time to make her stand –even on her feet, Clarke was sensibly smaller than her.

"-You'll have a little trouble when you walk out of the tent –the air inside is easier to breathe, to those called by the spirits."

Clarke thought she'd be rather happy to breathe some fresh air, and that she would enjoy the sharpness and coldness of it, but didn't contradict the grounder.

"-Thank you," she said before leaving. Sarita nodded, almost imperceptibly, and added nothing.

It hadn't went remotely as she planned, and differently of all the meetings she had with the grounders leaders until now –and the other woman had been the one leading it all, which was something Clarke had tried to avoid when dealing with the chiefs- but she still felt like something important just happened, even if she couldn't have said what it was exactly.

The light of the sun, especially reflected on the bright snow, had never seemed as aggressive to her as it did at the moment she came out of the tent, and she shielded her eyes with the back of her hand, looking for Octavia. She took her first breath of outside air without thinking of Sarita's warning. Where the hot smoke had caressed the inside of her few minutes ago, it felt like an icy blade passed through her body, so sharp and so _cold. _The world became clear again, and every breath seemed like a blow –it was as if reality itself was beating her up. She fell to her knees, surrounded by grounders, tried to get a hold on herself and to start breathing again, but every breath carried ice and pain.

She heard Octavia's voice call her name, and the girl ran to her, making the warriors step back.

"-Clarke! Are you all right? Are you hurt? What did you do to her?

-It's normal," one of the warrior said. They were all watching, but all seemed full of respect.  
"-The spirits favor her. She'll be better in few minutes."

Octavia gave him a defiant look while helping Clarke on her feet.

"-They don't show their favor in a very nice way, then."

Clarke involuntarily clung to her, while trying to reaccommodate to the outside air by taking only small intakes of breath, and the girl kept supporting her on her first steps. By the time they got to the end of the Spirit Clan's camp, she was walking by herself, and Octavia was pressing her with questions, which she answered only partially.

She was supposed to meet with the leader of the Eagles clan, but felt way too woozy to be any efficient, and Octavia walked her back to her room –she wanted to take her to the infirmary, but Clarke assured her there was nothing worrying. It was true, she thought; she was certain that nothing bad was going on in her body, she only needed time to get over the exhaustion it induced. She even slept better that most of the time, without any dream, which was a first in a while, and if her inner clock was completely messed up by the time she woke up, she still felt better than she had in days.

When she reported the meeting to the others, she had trouble explaining why she couldn't say more, or what exactly made her so certain that Sarita had been telling the truth; once again, Bellamy was the most pressing of them all. He wanted to know every detail and after a while his tone started to rise –to which she responded by telling him get off her back and that he didn't have to know her every moves- and on that they were back to yelling at each other like they did few days ago, except this time, all of her friends were there as well. It took them a little while to intervene, mostly because the argument had started all at once, and that none of them was expecting it to be that violent.

She fought a lot with Bellamy as the weeks passed; sometimes they reconciled like the first time, but most often one of them would end up slamming the door when storming out. On few occasion, the one who did that even came back barely a minute after and start yelling again as if none of them ever left the room. This time, however, they were stopped by the others, who didn't intend to spend half an hour watching them argue. Bellamy was the first one to leave the room when the session ended, clearly still pissed, and his sister, on the contrary, stayed after everyone else left.

"-You better?" She asked Clarke.

"-Sure. I told you, I just needed to rest a little.

-So you could gather enough energy to put off that show?" Her tone was more teasing than reproachful, and Clarke had a brief smile. Not brief enough to fly under Octavia's radar, though.

"-Well, you're in an unusually good mood, for someone who just got out off a fight. You sure you're not still high on the fumes?"

This time, Clarke chuckled. "-I don't think it was that kind of fumes, O.

-Meh. You'd know better than me. Stoner.

-As if.

-How come you were okay with it, though? That was suffocating.

-Sarita said that it depends on people. It's just easier for some." Those favored by the spirits was what she said, but Clarke wasn't about to share that with anyone, not even Octavia. Sarita said that Clarke and Lexa were alike –she wondered if that meant that Lexa has reacted the same way she did. She would ask if she ever had the chance.

"-Octavia," she called as the girl was about to leave.

"-Yeah.

-Clearly, Bellamy doesn't trust me anymore.

-It's not…

-Doesn't matter, I'll talk to him. What I want to know is if you trust me. We never exactly agreed on everything, especially during the first Alliance, but…

-Clarke, do you think I would follow you like I do if I didn't? That I'd let you deal with the Grounders and basically decide everything?

-I don't know. You could just be choosing the less of two evils."

Octavia sighed. "-I do trust you. Bellamy does too, you know. He's just as scared as we all are, and he worries about you.

-Well he should'nt. I'm fine."

Octavia looked at her for few seconds, seemingly searching for her words. "-Okay, Clarke, since you look like you're in a sharing mood, I'm gonna break it to you. We all worry about you.

-You're wasting your time, then. I'm…

-Fine? Come on, Clarke. You realize that this is the first discussion you have with one of us in weeks?

-Octavia, we do nothing but talk. And how would you know whether I talk to the others anyway?

-Because unlike you, we talk to each other, about other things than the war, which you don't. And none of us has managed to reach you lately, that's why…  
-Come on, it's not like you're so cuddly with each other either. I'm just focusing on what matters.

-Not losing your shit does matter, Clarke. No, we're not "cuddly", but we do help each other. It's hard for all of us to deal with all that happened, and yeah, we help each other through it. I mean, even Raven 'I-don't-need-no-help' Reyes gets more support than you accept from us, that should tell you something."

Clarke shook her head, her hands squeezing the back of the chair next to her. She knew that Octavia meant well, but she was starting to get on her nerves. Couldn't any of them see that she had to shut them out in order to stay functional? That is she started to let herself go, she'd fall apart in no time? _How did Lexa not cast me away the second I started doing this to her? _She wondered suddenly. _She had built all this walls to be able to keep doing what she needed to do, and I kept pushing, and I forced her to feel pain again. She was fighting to be above and I forced her to be human again. No wonder she broke it all and ran away from me. _

"-Clarke, listen…

-Get out.

-What?

-You've heard me."

Octavia silently stared at her, and at this second, she looked exactly like her brother did when had told him that it was fine if he wanted to be done with her.

"-You're changing. But I'm not so sure it's for the best," The girl finally said before turning back and exiting the room.

Clarke meditated her last sentence for a while. Well, _of course, _she was changing! That beat everything, she thought –Lexa had spent half of the time they ever spent together telling her that she couldn't get close to people or feel too much, and now that she was trying to apply those lessons, her own people were freaking out about it. It made her wonder if that really was what she was doing. Was she trying to become the same kind of leader as Lexa? She didn't know what she was doing was the truth –not when it came to feelings and relationships, at least. She simply had too much important things to worry about to take the time to figure out that kind of things.

The door opened again –on Octavia, who had apparently decided that the discussion wasn't over in the end.

"-You know what, Clarke…

-I don't have time for this.

-You don't have five minutes to talk to me?

-Of course, I do. I was talking about your support group, or your all let-us-help-you thing or whatever. I literally don't have time to "talk it all away" and get through this, do you get that? If I mess anything up, Octavia, we could all die –we could even if I don't! You said so yourself, everyone's counting on me! I just can't… I can't take time to hang out with you or "get support" or anything. It doesn't mean that I'm not fine, just that I have responsibilities. You can tell that to Bellamy if he worries so much, and that if he really wants to help me, he just has to stop questioning me and do his job as I'm trying to do mine. And that applies to you too. Clear?

-Cristal.

-Good. Leave me, now."

….

She met last with Arysthe, the leader of the Clan of the Great Lakes, Da'chel of the Desert Clan, Kotkarao, ruler of the Eagles Clan, and Terell, the one of the Nomads.

The Clan of the Great Lakes were sailor people, who lived more on the gigantic lakes –almost seas- on their territory than on the coasts. Their leader was maybe thirty or thirty five years old, and her second a girl who looked around Charlotte's age, named Lektra. The grounder children always made Clarke uneasy –they didn't look like children at all. This girl had the exact same look as lost grounders, the one who seemed to mean "one wrong move and I'll kill you". It was bad enough on an adult's face, but even worse on a child's.

Clarke couldn't decide whether Arysthe was on their side or not. She said that the Commander's orders had been heard, but there wasn't Eris's, Indra's and Auri's clear loyalty, nor Nia's franchise –even Wundar and Tangas, in their way, had been honest. Arysthe was harder to read, so Clarke settled for reminding her how much their respective interests matched. She knew that she didn't need to remind to any intelligent person the consequences of breaking Lexa's orders, but the fact that her people and the Grounders had everything to win by working together was never told too much. She couldn't tell, when leaving, if Arysthe had been any convinced or she had even believed that the Sky leader was sincere. But at least, that was a first contact. Maybe she'd try another way to get closer.

Da'Chel relieved her. To him, the allegiance to Lexa and the Coalition –and by extension the Alliance- made no doubt; plus, his clan had suffered hard from the reaping, even if not as much as the River and Woods Clans. He was also, along with his second Baruf, one of the warriors whom Clarke had freed from Alie's island, which made him owe her both as a leader and as a person. She wouldn't trust him blindly just based on words, but still, this was all good to hear, especially after her meetings with the hostiles Wundar and Tangas.

Kotkarao left her as perplex as Arysthe, in a different way. She thought he would respect Lexa's orders, at least until the second moon; if she didn't come back, he may sing another song by then, Clarke thought. Maybe he wouldn't stay and fight with the Sky People, maybe he would stand by their side and launch his army in the battle –what intrigued her was that he didn't seem to care that much which one it would be. The Eagles clan lived in the mountains, not green ones like those on the Trikru's territory, but higher mountains, where no tree grew and atmosphere was rarer; apparently, they had a different philosophy than most of the Grounders. Meaning that even though they were mostly warriors and hunters like the rest of them, they thought that death would take you whenever their time would come, and that no fight would change this. As a result of this, they weren't the kind that would scream battle cries or react to motivational speeches, or even feel immensely concerned by a deathly threat. Go figure, she thought. As long as they waited for their time here and not on the run, it was fine by her.

Terell, the leader of the Nomads, on the contrary, seemed to feel immensely concerned by this threat, so much that he was practically packing and on the leave when she met with him. With him, she had to use both threat and promises to get him to stay at least until the second moon of winter; if there was no sign of the Commander by then, she told him, it would still be time to run away. Of course, she didn't intend to let him leave even by now, if it that was how things turned out, but that she left out of the discussion.

She reported all of those meetings to the War Council; by the time she met them all, several times for few of them, the first moon of winter had passed its fullest phase and was thinning in a croissant form.


	25. Chapter 25

Few miles before Polis, the team was forced to stop its progression. They couldn't properly see the city -still hidden to their sights by hills and forests- yet, but what they could see were new walls around it, surrounding a larger territory than only few weeks ago. What they could also see between them and those walls, what stopped them from going forward, was a multitude of silver-eyed sitting still.

Lexa conferred few minutes with Maykl and Shaïra before deciding to sound her horn. Alone, they would never make it to Polis through the legions of Alie's slaves, but she hoped that if the city's army was to charge them, it would create enough chaos among them to let the team reach the doors.

They had only few minutes to wait before a riding unit came out of the city; as soon as the doors opened the silver-eyed rose in unison. Lexa had her warriors surrounding the villagers in protection for the time it would take them to cross the distance to the city. It was so close, after all this time and yet almost unreachable.

The silver-eyed converged to the riders coming from the city, who started to make ravages among them –those they couldn't decapitate at the first strike were speared once fallen by the second wave of warriors- but no matter their efficiency, they were quickly in difficulty, overly outnumbered and it wasn't long before the first horses started to fall amongst the silver-eyed. Once on the ground, the warriors had no chance to rise again, immediately covered by what had been human beings not so long ago. When Lexa's unit approached, though, the comportment of the silver-eyed changed and they redirected their attention to the team –to Lexa, as did the ones they met before the first Wasteland.

She sent the villagers on the horses away from her, straight to the city doors that they could now reach, since the silver-eyed had lost all interest in them, and kept only warriors with her; the riders from the city were able to open a way to her amongst the silver-eyed, without even being attacked again. Her team, on the contrary, was suddenly submerged and for the second time she faced those dead, empty silvered eyes that scared her more than what she had admitted to Clarke. To think that their spirits were now stuck in these falsely human forms instead of being set free…

She stopped her mind from drifting the second the silver-eyed reached them and let her body do the thinking instead. It really was their number that made them so dangerous –one by one they barely were adversaries. She slashed the throat of one of them, and planted her sword in his head as he fell, only to promptly pull it out, tripping the next one to the ground –she cut this one's head before he got back on his feet. All around her, her warriors fought as well, and the silver-eyed fell one by one, but the team was still backing up, for every dead enemy was followed by two others. She stood where she was, refusing to let them win even an inch of ground, killing them as fast as they approached, even faster, ignoring her shortening breath. She was able to advance after a few minutes, because her enemies now had a hurdle to overcome to get to her: the barrier of dead bodies before her.

The warrior to her left suddenly disappeared from her sight, and silver-eyed attacked her by this side; she turned to stop the first one to grab her arm, but the move left the ones in front of her free to reach for her, and she only had time to hurt him before being forced to turn back –while she killed two of those before her, the ones to her left charged. She swiftly kneeled down, catching one's leg to send him to the ground and pinned his head to it, and in the same move rolled away from the mass, conceding ground for the first time.

A bunch of silver-eyed was focusing only on the fallen warrior who had been fighting by her side, and before those she had just escaped from got to her again she went for him, slashed three of them dead before being forced to back away once more. A silver-eyed fell under her swords blows only to let place to three more, and as she killed two of them, the third reached close enough to catch and cling to her left arm. He brutally pulled, making her stumble, and reached for her throat, but she had already recovered and put her full weight in pushing him to the ground. Before they even touched the snow, her sword had penetrated his face, impaling him on the hard ground below.

Taking profit on the sole focus of the silver-eyed, the riders from Polis had finally reached the team and were now fighting to keep the way to the city open. Lexa and her warriors crossed a good distance under this protection, but soon enough the silver-eyed were flowing through the horses, aiming for her with a frightening obstinacy. The team kept going forward, fighting the silver-eyed now behind them. They were almost to the doors, at least compared to where they came from, but the sea of silver-eyed was closing around them. There weren't so many options left, Lexa saw, but it didn't mean that she liked the one she could think of.

Still, she shouted to the remaining cavalry to get off their horses and form a barrier between the team and the silver-eyed to let them time to reach Polis –silver-eyed were faster than horses, but the doors were close enough to be reached anyway with a little advance. The warriors from Polis knew this meant they would die here and now to make sure their Commander would make it to the city, but not one of them hesitated.

…

The new walls of Polis were enclosing an enormous camp of tents and wooden buildings organized in streets and places. The villagers, having reached the doors during the battle, had spread the news of her arrival, and as she was wearing both her war paints and red Commander sash, the team barely had time to actually enter this camp before she was recognized; a crowd immediately started to gather. The people acclaimed her.

Her very first reaction to the sight of the camp of refugees was horror –they were so, so many- but when they started to call her, to cheer, to kneel, she realized this was the wrong way to see it. The more they were, the better. Every one of those people was safer here than anywhere else in her territory. Thousands of refugees in Polis were thousands of people she could protect. She responded to their salutes as the team rode through the camp. The closer they were getting from Polis, the more it looked like a real new city, organized, settled. They crossed several rows of palisades and even reals new walls, and by the time they finally reached the high walls of Polis, the refugees had filled the streets of their camp and the team only had a small space to circulate –and even that space disappeared as soon as they passed, gnawed by the compact mass of people reforming.

When they entered the city, the news of their arrival had already spread and the crowd was as thick as it had been outside. The people cheered as Lexa raised her hand to salute them.

It took the team a while to get to the heart of the city in those conditions, and her generals and councilors had already gathered in the palace, which she was informed of by a young messenger dressed exclusively in toned green –one of Titus's.

She split the team up when they arrived to the palace –most of the warriors, she let free to do and go whatever and wherever they'd please, but she sent Shaïra with Leal and Zeke, and took Maykl with her.

The first hours of the assembly were reserved to information. She told them about everything that had been discovered since she left –Alie, the silver and its effects, her bases all across the lands of the Coalition. She told them about the alliance with the Sky people, and the hoped alliance with the Boat people and the South Nation, about how the Sky people wanted to dispose parts of the army next to every one of Alie's bases to attack them all at the same time when they would be able to take on the island of the Overseas Men. She told them how to fight the silver-eyed, and that the lands around the Wastelands needed to be evacuated if there still were people alive there.

They told her about how people had tried to escape the Wastelands and the silver-eyed that appeared shortly after, about all the lands that had been lost, the clans decimated; they told her that while some had went to find the City of Lights, many had fled to the territories of the North, untouched for now, as much as they knew, and even more had travelled to Polis to place themselves under the Commander's protection. There had been so much protestation few years earlier when Lexa had started to collect and accumulate provisions directly from the stocks of the clans, taking what they didn't immediately need to stock it in Polis in case of famine, but now, it was what had allowed the city to welcome and feed the hundreds, thousands of people who had seek protection there.

They told her how some spared villagers had tried to build defenses, but a lot had fell under the silver-eyed attacks; mostly, refugees had united wherever they could, creating new barricaded villages, or becoming nomads. Lexa ordered for reinforcements to be sent to every clan, with provisions to help them deal with the amount of refugees, and for those warriors to look for fleeing and retrenched people and lead them to the closest fortified cities.

They talked of logistics and organization for hours before she let her generals go with an all set of instructions. Titus waited for her to be finished with every one of them to approach her. He had never looked happy about anything, ever, for as long as Lexa had known him, but still, the look he had at this instant made her fear the worst. It wasn't usual for him to be so openly worried.

"-What troubles you, Titus?" Not counting the invasion of the entire nation, that was. What could even seem troubling compared to that?

"-The city of Fenron has fallen to the hordes of silver-eyed, Heda. As did Rora, Crossroads, Canan. I don't need to tell you the names of the others. There were no survivors. None. I have sent emissaries to search the ruins and the lands around –and they found them. All dead."

Lexa froze. "-No.

-I assure you, Heda…

-No, you must be wrong. There has to be some left.

-I was not able to learn anything about the boy next to the frontier of the territory of Trikru. All the others, all of the children born all over the nation on the day of Commander Henra's death are dead.

-One…" She lost her breath. He considered her, as impassible as always. "-One," she repeated, more firmly. "-Has this ever happened before?

-No, Heda. Once, there were only three children on the day of the choice, but there _always_ was a choice.

-If he is the only one left, then he is the next Commander. We cannot take the risk to lose him. Have you sent emissaries there?

-As soon as the first ones died. But there had been no news of them, ever. We don't know if he is still alive, we are only uncertain of his death.

-No, I would know. I would have… felt something if a Commander had died, even a future one. The spirit Clan would have known too.

-I hope you are right, Heda." He bowed and left, leaving Lexa alone, petrified in the Assembly room.

It couldn't be, she thought. She did not fail and ended a dynasty that had been unbroken in almost a century. But what if the boy really was dead? What would happen when she would die, then? There couldn't be a rightful new Commander, and the wars that had teared apart the nation before her birth would rage again with no hope of reunification, this time, and all that the Commanders had ever accomplished would be damned to ashes –and she'd be the greatest failure of them all. A forever broken nation would be her legacy.

Every one of them, she thought. Even the girl from the Spirit Clan who, according to every rapport that had been made to Lexa, was so promising. None of them had known who they could someday become, but all of them had been watched over since their birth –how came that none had been secured when this all began? That none of the emissaries whose mission it was to keep an eye on them had been close enough when Alie stroke to save at least few of them? No, the boy had to be still alive. Her lineage couldn't have ended without her even knowing it.

…..

She went out of the palace, this night, without all of her Commander's attributes and only a concealed blade. She knew she'd be recognized if anyone payed attention –it was her city, after all- but the point of being dressed in regular clothes was that no one would pay attention to her.

The streets were calm, and the city looked nothing like the capitol of a nation at war. Polis had been spared by the wars that had preceded Lexa's reign, and now by Alie's attacks; its inhabitants had long lost the habit of survival, of constant danger. They felt safe. It was a feeling she wanted to protect at any cost.

She ate, on her way to the camp of refugees, slices of meat cooked in spices, for which the merchant didn't ask anything from her. So much for anonymity, but he didn't say anything. It was without a doubt the tastiest meal she had had in weeks –on their way to Polis, the team had mostly ate fresh meat with no accommodation.

There was a gathering in the camp when she got there, a small crowd of families listening to a group of people on a small platform. It was a tale-telling, she realized with pleasure. It was a tradition of the Eagle Clan: they narrated stories of the Coalition, of the Commanders and the clans, and even enacted some parts. It had been a tradition of this clan only, but she had encouraged it throughout the rest of her territory when she had first discovered it. She thought it was a good way to transmit the same stories to all of the Coalition, to culturally unite the clans. She sat down among the people, and no one noticed her as she watched while chewing her last slice of meat.

The tale-telling was about her, she realized after she started to listen. This was the telling of the end of the Swamp Clan, a favorite among her people. It had started a short time ago, since they were still depicting a death ceremony of the Swamp Clan, which they used to show the audience that they were the bad guys without a doubt. Which they had been, she mused. Most clans had to kill to survive, but the Swamp had embraced the killings so much it had become their religion. They didn't kill to live, but the other way around.

As the scene ended and let place to the picturing of the Commander's army –her own role was played by a teenage girl wearing war paints similar to hers, she saw with some kind of pride- a child barely old enough to walk bumped into her. She turned to him to discover a chubby toddler with dark curls that fell all over his face. He had clear hazel big eyes that opened widely when their looks met.

"-Hello, little one." His eyes widened even more at the sound of Lexa's voice as if it seemed somehow exceptional to him. He took a step back, stumbled, and fell on his bottom; still looking at her, he raised his arms in her direction with a very determined "-Ba!"

She looked around to see if any older person was about to claim him, or looking for him. He repeated his exclamation, with an insisting tremolo.

"-You wish to be held, yes?"

He shook his arms, reaching for her, and she leaned to pick him up. He had a gleeful squeak when she settled him in her arm. On stage, the pretend Commander was now facing bloody Swamp warriors –animal blood, she guessed. The show was few minutes away from its end when a little girl, around five years old, approached her. She had the same dark curls and hazel eyes as the child who fell asleep on Lexa's lap, but unlike him, was anything but chubby. That was why he was, Lexa thought, because he had a big sister that fed him more than she ate herself. The girl apologized to her and went to wake her brother up, but Lexa stopped her.

"-Are you alone? Is your family dead?" The girl nodded shyly. "-And no one is taking care of you?

-I can take care of him!" On an offended tone. Lexa's heart squeezed painfully in her chest. It was true that children could take care of each other. She and Costia certainly had.

"-He is still alive, so I suppose that is true. But I would like you to come with me so both of you can be taken care of."

The girl's eyes widened, accenting her resemblance with her brother. "-Come where?" She asked in a small voice.

"-To the city. I know people who will help. Will you come?"

The girl looked at her, then at her brother, her lips and chin trembling. She nodded with precipitation, as if she was afraid that Lexa would change her mind if she wasn't fast enough. Lexa rose, settling the sleeping toddler against her shoulder, and left the place, the girl on her trail, as her counterpart on stage was slaying the leader of the Swamp Clan.

When they entered the city, the girl timidly got closer from her to grab the end of her tunic –Lexa guessed that she had never set foot in a real city before- and it was with a child clinging to her and another drooling all over her shoulder that she got to the palace. The guard of the small entrance that she chose, if he wondered about that, didn't let anything show. Shaïra, whom Lexa had sent for, arrived minutes later, and she, on the other hand, did look surprised.

"-Should I send them to the kitchens?" She asked, considering the skinny little girl.

"-It won't be necessary. The villagers that we brought with us, lead me where they settled. The couple whose baby died, they had lost another child before, is that right?

-Oh. Yes. They have been installed in the army's accommodations. By the time the army is able to come back, they'll have found more definitive settlements.

-Yes, that was a good idea."

The little girl seemed glued to her, even more since they entered the palace. Shaïra let them to the villagers, who acclaimed Lexa's entrance –waking up the little boy who started to cry. The girl pulled on Lexa's tunic and asked her to put him down so she could calm him. She did, and left her, cuddling her brother, on Shaïra's watch while she went to talk to the couple. She thought that the man would burst in tears when she showed them the pair of parentless children and that he understood what she was expecting, and the woman, calmer than him, only looked at the two as she was looking at a miracle. The man walked to the children, and when the girl raised her head at him, kneeled down to talk to her. She then turned to Lexa, who nodded. She child smiled, a beautiful, hopeful smile, and let the woman take the toddler in her arms.

They thanked Lexa again and again, and as she was about to leave, the little girl ran to her, and after making her understand that she wanted her to go down at her level, braided a single lock of her hair, with a fastness and dexterity the showed she had done that a consequent amount of times – and ended the braid with a little red pearl of glass that she took from her own hair. "-For protection," she muttered in Triguedasleng. "-For your fights."

Lexa nodded: "-Thank you."

…..

"-Take care of this tomorrow," She said to Shaïra as they walked back to the palace. "-There must be a lot of children without family, they need to be placed somewhere. I won't have orphans running the streets of my city. Don't waste time, we won't stay long in Polis.

-Yes, Heda. Will we leave sooner than planned?

-Yes. Something came up. How's Leal?

-Resting. The healer said she will be better in few days.

-Hm. We may not have few days.

-If I may, Heda, what happened?

-Bad news. I'll tell you when we're back on the road. Rest well while you can, tomorrow will be busy."

She entered her bedroom with a slight emotion –it always felt a little weird to get back to it after so much had happened since she left Polis. She sighed, thinking that she should have asked for a bath to be prepared. She missed the showers of Camp Jaha, she thought as she waited for the servants to fulfill their task. It was a delightful invention. Maybe there was a way to have some installed in her palace.

The next day, she met again with her generals. The warriors they would send would get to the cities in need of defense, then, when having secured them as much as they could, would travel to Alie's bases, which locations had been discovered in the files brought back by Clarke. They would be joined there, when the time would come, by the joint forces of the Coalition and the Sky people –and hopefully, those of the South Nation. She feared for her city, though, if too many of its soldiers were sent away; on the other hand, it would be useless to send reinforcements anywhere if they weren't enough to make a difference. This second day was spent entirely in the Assembly room –and it had something so familiar it was almost relaxing. _Now, _it all looked like another campaign to plan, and _that _she knew how to do.

…..

The occasion to try Sarita's gift came sooner that Clarke would have wished, only two days later. She had spent the day in the grounder camp, mostly with the River leader, Auri. She had managed, along her meetings, to convince the leaders to map their lands for her –the look on their faces when she had first introduced the idea would have been comical in other circumstances- and if she suspected that some of them had left out important information, the map Auri was now presenting her looked accurate enough. With the location of the villages and those of the Wastelands furnished by the chiefs, it was possible to at least estimate the extent of the damages, to see which zones were the most dangerous, where there would be concentrations of silver-eyed –granted that they didn't travel a lot. Auri completed for her the parts that the chiefs had left blank.

Around midday, as they were discussing the grounder army –she had realized that she didn't know a lot about it; to her they were an indistinct mass of lookalike screaming people, but they were actually very different depending on their clan and training- few servants entered to serve them a meal. It was, as most of what the grounders ate, meat of hunted animals, served without toping but there was also a berry –well, cake was the only fitting word- that looked positively yummy. Clarke had wondered about how they managed to bake bread and others of those foods, and it had took a visit of the camp to see that they had actually built rudimentary ovens out of stones and dried mud.

Nol, Auri's little brother and second, illuminated at the sight of the cake, but offered it to Clarke and Auri first. Has wasn't even eleven years old, maybe barely ten, she estimated. Even younger than Jak, but already in training, and she had no doubt that he'd be able to kill if necessary. He was so different from her birds, a child only by age and appearance.

She left the camp by sundown, and was joined by Octavia, coming directly from Indra's quarters, a forming bruise covering half of her face. She had a cut right above the eye and looked rather pissed. She avoided Clarke's interrogative look. "-Training." She mumbled. "-But the other guy looks even worse." Clarke didn't comment, and on their way to the camp, gave her the map so she could have it copied.

When she got back to her room before going to see Raven -who had radioed her in the afternoon to ask her to come whenever she could – a sudden pain flashed through her head, and immediately spread. She grunted. It was too soon, her body had just had time to get rid of the traces of morphine from her last take. Two times already, she had felt serious vertigo after taking her pills, and sleepiness –which wasn't surprising, but coupled to that night when she had dreamed that she was drowning in a silver river, only to woke up really searching for air, her chest rising and falling fast and uselessly… She knew exactly what it meant. All those were symptoms that one would get from a dose of morphine higher that what human body could handle. In other words, she was bordering on overdose with her three pills per take, and if she had to do that every few days… Well, there would soon be consequences. And it was no time to get forced to spend days at the infirmary.

But what else could she do? There wasn't any antidote left and her only other options were to face the dreams, which wasn't really an option, and, maybe, try what Sarita had given her. Inside the pouch was a brown powder with no smell. Few pinches in a glass of water, the woman had said. As dangerous as her morphine pills could be, at least she knew what she was getting. Trying this, on the other hand, was complete and utter unconsciousness.

Blood came streaming down her nose, almost immediately reaching her mouth, and she spat with disgust at the metallic taste, trying to wipe the rest of it out –but it was pouring too fast and abundantly. What the hell, she thought. True, that weird looking powder could kill her, for what she knew, but so could morphine. And she had trusted Sarita.

Mirroring her three pills, she let three pinches of brown dust dissolve into water which turned in a thicker liquid. She locked the door of her room before drinking it all at once, leaving a bloody lip mark on the glass.

Silver overflowed her vision. She heard, from far away, the noise of the glass shattering on the floor.

"-You're mine. Let me show you, Clarke, the City of…

-No!"

Back in the silvered hallway she first dreamed about, Alie waiting for her at the end, she turned around furiously, but her way was stopped by an endless mass of silver-eyed.

"-Don't fight it, Clarke. It will be so much easier when you see the truth."

Unwillingly, she turned her head back –in front of her was standing Alie's human form, smiling to her. "-Your pain is superfluous. Kneel before me and it will all go away. This is all you have to do."

She had had this dream before. This was the beginning of the part she kept forgetting every time she woke up, because at this point of the vision, her mind was usually already in control, if only for the time of the dream. But now, she was still herself, and Alie didn't know it. She didn't know about Sarita's medicine. Clarke kneeled, her face raised at the AI, and in reality she kneeled as well, unaware of the shards of glass penetrating her flesh.

"-Good. Come, my prophet. It is time for your reward."

They climbed the hallway that Clarke remembered from her first Alie's dream and the sea of silver-eyed split before them as they went up to the stars. And Clarke saw the City of Lights appear. Except that it wasn't lights that gave it its name, but rather the stars that surrounded it. The City of Lights was a spatial city.

Alie's avatar was walking before her, but suddenly, without turning back or moving in any way, she was back facing Clarke. Her previously welcoming face was now deformed by anger.

"-Liar –How is this possible?"

Clarke tried to back away, but hit what seemed like a concrete wall of human bodies, and Alie only had few steps to take to reach her. Before Clarke had time to find any way out, the avatar caught her head between her hands –she had physical presence in the dream, Clarke briefly thought- her palms directly on her temples.

"-You won't take this with you, Clarke. Now, suffer, until next time we meet."

Her eyes shone as she pressed her hands against Clarke's face. It felt as if her brain had caught fire. She screamed, unable to help herself, screamed as she collapsed on the silvered floor, Alie's hands never letting go of her, screamed as every one of her nerves carried messages of suffering through her body, screamed until she came back to consciousness in a flash of light.

She was lying on her back in her bedroom, her eyes drifting over the metallic ceiling. She stayed immobile, breathing deeply –through her mouth, for her nose was blocked by crusts of dried blood- until she realized that her radio, that she always took when going to the grounder camp, was receiving a transmission. She sat down, expecting vertigo or nausea, but all that she felt was a sting of pain in her knees. Except for that, she wasn't hurting anymore, and wasn't nearly as groggy as she was after her morphine takes.

"-Listening," she said –the steadiness of her voice amazed her.

"-Hey, Clarke, it's Raven. Where are you? You were supposed to come by." Clarke peaked a look at her watch to discover, baffled, that almost three hours had passed since she drank the powdered water.

"-Yeah, sorry about that. I fell asleep. I'll be there in five.

-Oh, all right. Well, you can come tomorrow if you want, I just wanted to make sure nothing happened. You never know lately.

-No, I'm coming. I'm sorry I've kept you waiting. Although, make it fifteen instead, I just remembered something I have to do first.

-Sure. Hey, put on something ultra-warm, it's freezing outside."

Clarke had a raspy laugh. "-Thanks."

Her pants were bloodstained at the knees, and even if it wasn't that obvious on the dark fabric, she didn't want to take the risk of anyone noticing; she had to take the splinters of glass out of her skin, anyway. It bled a stupidly whole lot, and few of them had sunk pretty deep in her right knee, but none broke in the wounds as she was taking them out. She disinfected and bandaged both of her knees, mostly to keep it from bleeding through her new pants, and put on a thermic shirt under her coat before going out.

Raven was right, the temperature had went down a lot in the evening, so much that there was a crust of frost bordering on solid ice above the snow. It didn't make for an easy walk, and she got to Raven's headquarters a good ten minutes later than what she had told her.

"-Hey. Sorry about the delay, weather's all over the place.

-I know, right? I'd swear we just entered a new Ice Age. Don't sweat it, I'm not in that much of a -are you all right?

-Yeah, why?" Clarke asked, surprised by Raven's sudden reaction. She was certain to have cleaned all the blood on her face.

"-Have you seen your eyes?

-No." Clarke raised a hand to her face, reminded of the tears of blood she had shed the day of the virus. "-What's wrong with them?

-They're completely red, it's like you're bleeding inside or something! Let me just get my coat, we're going to the infir-

-No. I'm okay, Raven. Why did you want to see me?"

Raven frowned. "-How do you know? It could be something serious, Clarke, it really looks…

-I'll go later. So what was it? You sounded pretty excited over the radio this afternoon.

-Oh yeah, I think you'll be too," Raven smirked. She hesitated a little, still watching Clarke in the eyes, but the prospect of showing her new founding swayed her decision. "-Ok, we know that Overseas Men don't mind radiations, since they're the ones who set the cores and launch the Wastelands –but I think that they actually do, they're just protected by their suits.

-Wait, silver-eyed don't have suits, and they're not vulnerable to…

-Yeah, I know. I spoke with the team that studied the formulas, you remember there were several of them? Well, they think the Overseas Men in white armors and the silver-eyed, and well, Jaha and the two grounders chiefs have all been brainwashed by different versions of the poisons. So they're basically all Alie's puppets, but different categories, and they don't all have the same… characteristics.

-Right. Hence Jaha's normal eyes.

-Yep. So, their suits are at least ten times more efficient than the Mountain's ones, thanks to –look at this."

She showed Clarke the panel of glass she and Wick used to work, specifically the representation of a complex molecule.

"-It's been a while since science class, Raven. What molecule is that?

-Why, that's the point. No freaking idea. Wick keeps saying we should name it after ourselves, but, you know, he never stops saying stupid shit. What we do know is that it rocks against radiations, and while we have no way of creating more of it, we do have a bunch of it in the fabric of their suits, and –brace yourself- tadaa!"

She handed a heavy and hermetically sealable box to Clarke. "-First prototype of the new core container. We can make at least fifteen of them, maybe to twenty within few days.

-Are you serious?

-I know, I'm awesome.

-Raven, if this thing works, you just surpassed every level of awesomeness ever!

-Oh, I'm four hundreds percent positive that it will. This baby's ready to do its job anytime."

Clarke gave her back the container, not even trying to hide her smile.

"-I need as much of these as you can make, then, as soon as possible. Don't risk messing anything up by rushing it, though. This is absolute priority, if you need anything, let me know immediately. Thank you, Raven.

-Where are you going?

-Make the best of this. You _are _awesome."

This got a laugh from Raven. "-Tell me something I don't know, Griffin!" She gleefully shouted through the hallway as Clarke left the room and the Arch.

…..

There was a lot of movement in the Grounder camp when Clarke, war paints back on her face, got there, half an hour later, especially in the parts of the Grasslands and the Cave people, but spreading everywhere. Few hundreds of warriors were gathered before a dais hastily built of trunks, and she recognized Wundar on top of it, haranguing them. That was trouble.

A warrior approached her, and she recognized the River war paints –she had seen the woman before in Auri's entourage. "-Princess, you can't stay here. It's too dangerous for you.

"-What's happening? Is he…

-Tangas of the Cave people and him want to leave with their army, and they talked few of the others chiefs in it. But the other clans won't let them. We'll fight to make the Commander's orders…

-And get into a civil war tonight? No, that'd be even worse. Go tell Auri to gather the chiefs still on our side.

-You can't go down there!"

Clarke shot her a look made darker by the Sky wings on her face. "-And you can't question me instead of obeying when I give an order. Go."

She descended down the hill, and as she came closer, started to hear exactly what the leader of the Grasslands was shooting to the crowd. No matter how you wanted to hear it, that was traitory. Challenging the Commander, going against her orders, trying to raise armies and leaders against her –and a lot of them were listening. _I should kill him. That's the only thing they'll understand, challenge Lexa's authority and you die. That's the only way to… _She could almost shoot him from where she was. Blow his brains up before the entire army and show them that you didn't mess with the Sky Princess. It was the obvious way. The easy way.

She unclenched the safety of her gun –thank god he had chosen the dark of the night for his coup, allowing her to remain unseen as she got close enough to aim. When he'd be dead, she'd have to climb the wooden dais from which he was talking and… And what? Claim herself queen of the barbarians? Kill everyone who'd disagree with her? If she played her cards well, she'd have that much power, followed by the clans still loyal. She could slaughter opponents in order to rule, that easily.

Wundar's head was in a straight line from her gun. She lowered it and locked back the safety.

When she got to the dais, Grasslands warriors recognized her and tried to stop her, but Woods and River grounders were there as well and blocked their opponents, attracting Wundar's attention. Their eyes met.

"-Get down before this gets ugly," she told him, not high enough for other around to hear her. He didn't take the bait.

"-Look at this, warriors, the Sky" –he used a word in Triguedasleng that she didn't know, but given the reactions, it was hardly flattering- "thinks she can order us! What's our answer to this weakling?" The crowd roared. "-Our people are in danger while she hides behind her metal walls and she thinks that because she fucks the Commander, she's one as well!"

Clarke climbed the trunks to join him, taking the full measure of the army below.

"-All of you, my warriors, watch –watch the way we should be treating the Sky people if the Commander was to show any strength!"

Any hope she had to reason him faded away when he took a fighting stance. He wanted this confrontation –he wanted to show off before his people. She had no chance against him in a fight, she knew it. But he knew it too, and that made him too confidant, careless. If she could just…

She avoided the first blow from almost nothing –the fist brushed her face- and the second one hit her ribcage, chasing the air out of her lungs. Before she could try anything, he had hit the side of her face and unsheathed his dagger.

She saw in a glance the warriors of the Woods and River try to take on the dais, but those from the Grasslands and Caves were too many gathered around and wouldn't let them.

She faltered at the hit as blood came streaming down her face and Wundar's armed hand flew to her –he didn't even bother to protect himself, certain of her weakness, but she didn't try to punch him or to step back. Instead, she threw herself against him, diverting his arm and, more importantly, getting close enough to send an oblique kick to his knee with all the force she could put in it. He roared as his articulation broke and his leg bent in a horrifying angle.

In his fall, his dagger found its way to Clarke's back, and teared open skin and flesh on its way down as he held on to it. He tried to get back up, but she grabbed and twisted his armed arm, preventing him to get his balance back; his other arm cam hitting her stomach, brisk blows that would stop her legs in no time. Didn't matter –straightening her hand, she came hit him in the throat, making him stop all moves immediately, as he tried to take a breath. All that came out of his mouth was a pathetic gurgle. She let go of his arm after he dropped his dagger to grab his hair and bent his head back.

He tried to scream when her thumb buried into his orbit, but all that he managed to produce were more gurgles –until she felt his eye burst under her fingers and then he found his voice again and yelled. She caught the fallen dagger and brought it to his bruised throat, ready to bleed him at the first threatening move. There was nothing he could do that wouldn't lead to his death, and he knew it.

"-Last chance," she hissed at his ear. "-Give up and I might consider saving your people and maybe even leave you alive.

-You're the one who's stopping me to save them," he spat. He literally was spitting blood clots as he struggled to talk.

"-Wrong. We can protect them –we can neutralize the Wastelands on you territory- if you bow before me. Think. All of your people, an allegiance that you've sworn to respect. You have nothing to lose. Come with me now, and we both win."

She felt his entire body shake. "-My clan will never follow a beaten leader.

-Beaten by a Commander. No shame in that. Take the smart way, Wundar. Save your people."

He said, between his teeth, something in Triguedasleng.

"-In English," she ordered.

"-If you can save my lands and my people… I'll follow you.

-What about Tangas?

-He wants safety for his tribe. If you can offer him that…

-Fine. Tell your warriors here to stop fighting those from Trikru."

He raised his now unique eye at her and she stood his reddened look imperturbably. His warriors hesitated when he barked an order in Triguedasleng, but at the second yell, they complied.

"-Let them live," Clarke ordered in a loud voice to the River and Woods warriors. She rose, and Wundar stayed kneeling before her. "-Take him to Indra's tent. Restrained."

She turned to face the waiting army. "-People of the Cave and Grasslands. The treason you fomented tonight was washed away by the blood of your leader, and for now, he saved both you and himself by submitting to me. Any further action against my people, the Commander's orders, the Coalition or the Alliance will be punished by death, and no surrender will be enough to save you this time."

She didn't see which ones started it –probably the few warriors from her allied clans- but they started kneeling, only few to begin with, then by dozens, and those who tried to resist were forced to the ground by the others. After two or three minutes, hundreds of warriors were kneeled before her. She contemplated the sight for a time, tasting for the first time the power of a Commander, then: "-Rise. You don't belong to the mud."

On that, she climbed down the dais while the hundreds of warriors stood back on their feet. Once hidden from their sight by the trunks, she spotted with relief Auri coming to her with few of his closest warriors. He kneeled at his turn before her, and she shook her head, gesturing him to get back on his feet.

"-I'm sorry, Princess. I couldn't stop them.

-It's not your fault. You were loyal, the Commander will know this. I want all the chiefs in Indra's tent as soon as possible. Don't hurt Tangas, just restrain him if necessary.

-It will be done.

-Send a healer for Wundar too, and…

-One for you as well? You're hurt…

-Yes. In your tent, if that's all right.

-Of course. Yalle, Nath, escort the Sky Princess to my tent. No one is to touch her."

….

The healer got her to take both her coat and her shirt –and even more than the alarming amount of blood staining the back of her clothes, it was the tearing of her coat that upset her. She tried to shake it off by reasoning that it was just clothing, but it was the coat that Lexa gave her, her comfort coat. There surely was a way to fix it –it would be a scarred coat, which was kind of fitting after all.

She couldn't hold a grin of pain when the healer started to tend the wound.

"-How is it?" she asked.

"-Deep. But the bone protected your lung. It ripped almost to your waist, which is why you're losing so much blood. Fortunately, it got less deep as the knife descended.

-Can you stitch it?

-Yes, but you'll lose more blood that if I cauterize it.

-Go with the stitches and bandages. I'll be fine.

-As you wish, Princess."

She almost wished she went with the fire blade, few minutes later, once in Indra's tent. Maybe she would have felt less light-headed, which would have made the rest of the night easier. All of the leaders were here; she had Auri, Sarita, Indra and Eris, the only ones she really trusted, close to her, while Tangas and Wundar were at the other side of the table. Only Wundar was chained, Tangas having agreed to surrender without resistance after what happened to the leader of the Grasslands. Between those two groups, Da'chel of the Desert Clan, Terell, of the Nomad's, Kotkarao of the Eagles, Artaras of the Farmers, as well as Nia and Elissa, were waiting for the rest.

"-What happened tonight is to never happen again," she started. "-Your Commander left clear orders, and have no doubt that I'll enforce them by any means. Does anyone have something to say against that?"

Nia rose from her seat, and Clarke focused at her. She kept a face that she hoped as impassible as Lexa's, but in her mind, she was praying for Nia not to confront her. She was the worst enemy she could have in the Coalition. She was too powerful.

"-You speak very loud for someone who is not above any of us. You may lead a clan, but so does every one of us here. It is true that the Commander favors you, but it does not elevate you higher than us. I am not challenging Lexa's authority, let that be clear, but…

-But mine."

Nia coldly stared. "-Yes. I think that since the Commander is not among us, we should choose among the leaders of the Coalition the one we will follow until she is back or a new Commander arises.

-I take it that one would be you?

-Why not? Am I not more qualified than you are? You are a stranger. Your clan is not even part of the Coalition." Clarke straightened as Nia's voice got imperious.

"-Don't challenge me."

Nia's eyes quickly slipped to Wundar, chained and still bloody. "-One victory does not prove that you are worthy of…

-She has the favor of the spirits," Sarita intervened, rising at her turn, at Clarke's side. "-They welcomed her as they welcomed the Commander herself."

The announcement didn't mean a lot to Clarke, but it seemed to signify much more to the grounders. Even Nia's look changed, and she faced Clarke with a different attitude.

"-Why did you not told us that?

-I thought you'd be reasonable anyway," Clarke shrugged to avoid admitting that she had no idea it would make such a difference. She didn't break eye contact with Nia before the Ice queen sat back on her seat.

"-My apologies, Prisa," she said, at Clarke's surprise. –I will not go against the spirits.

-Wise choice. Anyone else?"

As she thought, no one spoke a word.

"-Now, some of you clearly have doubt about the Commander's –and my- ability to protect the lands and people you left behind to come here. You'll be glad to know that we have found a way to neutralize numerous Wastelands. Not all of them, but a lot anyway. Each of you will be given a number of containers able to contain the cores, based on the size of your territory and the number of your people in danger. I'll allow units of warriors of each of your armies to leave with some of my people to your lands. Now, I' don't want you to send your own warriors to your own lands –I don't want some of you to see this as a way to send hostile messages. You'll be allowed to send your seconds or lieutenants, but no chief is to leave my territory. I'll see each of you separately to set details."

….

By the time the sun rose and casted its light on the army, creating shiny reflections everywhere on the metal of the weapons, Clarke was swaying on her feet, and trying all she could to not let it see. Thankfully, she didn't have to walk back to Camp Jaha; Auri lent her a horse and an escort. Her day was only starting, though.

Raven took a while to answer when Clarke initiated the communication; it was actually Wick who picked up, and at his sleepy voice, she supposed that she had cut their night in its middle.

"-Wick, it's Clarke. Is Raven there?

-Sleeping.

-Wake her up. I need to talk to her.

-Er, do you know what time it is?

-Wick!

-All right, all right… Hey…" Clarke heard a duet of murmurs and moves before Raven's voice, clear and awake, took over.

"-Hey, Clarke. T's up?

-Raven, I need everyone in the Council Room, _now._ Spread the word. Wick and Kane too, and it won't hurt to have someone from the science team.

-You get it. Did something happen?

-Yeah, but we're gonna be okay. If we act fast.

-Ok."

She left Yalle and Nath, the two warriors Auri assigned to her, at the door of the camp, with a message for the River leader, asking him to get to the camp with all the chiefs, with their seconds but no other warriors, to the Council Room in an hour.

She went straight to the Council Room herself, where her friends were already waiting –her arrival provoked a general reaction. Of course, she thought, she still had blood on her face and hair from Wundar's blow, blood that had streamed on her face and mixed up with her war paints without erasing them, and her hands were covered with Wundar's dried blood.

"-What the hell happened to you?" Octavia asked as Clarke reached her usual seat. She sat down with relief.

"-Negotiations." She thanked Kane with a nod when he handed her the map –no, she saw, a copy of it- of the Coalition. "-Come here so everyone can see. Those –she indicated the red dots on the map- are the Wastelands we know about. And those" –she reported on the map, next to the Wastelands and villages, numbers from a piece of paper stuck in one of the pocket of the coat offered in replacement by Auri- "are the approximately accurate number of people affected. Monty, I need you to run it with the numbers we found in Alie's files, and, Raven, how many time for how many containers, max?

-Around twenty in a week or so…

-Can't have "around". Give me a number.

-Twenty-two, actually," Wick intervened, getting himself a look half irritated, half indulgent from Raven. "-If we can get a full week."

Clarke bit her lip, taking a second to think about it. "-All right. Monty, take anyone you need to help you, I want an equitable repartition of twenty-two core containers between the Clans, according to the number of people still alive there –so you need an estimation of that too. Can you get that from the files?

-Well, we can't be certain of anything, but yeah, sure.

-Good. And take note that all containers won't be send at the same time, so I want to know where it's the most urgent, based on your calculations. Kane and… Sorry, what's your name?" She asked to the kid from the science team who had been brought by Raven.

"-Cade.

-Cade, Kane, I need you to select soldiers and scientist who will leave with grounders to the Wastelands to help them neutralize it. Only volunteers, insist on how important it is, but do tell them that it'll be highly... risky.

-Wow, Clarke, slow down, will you?" Bellamy intervened from the seat next to hers, as she turned to Octavia.

"-We really don't have time to slow down.

-Can't you at least tell us what is happening? What happened tonight? And don't you think we should talk about sending our people to contaminated zones?

-We don't have time," she repeated, raising her voice. "-The grounder leaders will be there in an hour, and…

-What happened? I didn't even know that Raven and Wick could make new containers, why did you run straight to the grounders to tell them?

-Not quite what happened. I was just going to talk to Auri and Indra, and when I got there, a quarter of the army was about to call it a day and take off, so I…

-So you went and made deals and promises that obligate us all, by yourself!"

She raised her head at him, literally feeling her patience evaporate.

"-Out. _Now_.

-Clarke, I'm absolutely not leaving if you don't tell me…

-Oh, I'm gonna tell you a whole lot of things," She said, barely managing to keep her voice straight.

She dragged him in the room across the hallway, the one where she and Lexa had had one of their first face-offs after she got back to the camp.

"-Look, I didn't mean it to come out that harshly, all right?" He started on a conciliar tone, which at least stopped her to snap completely at him. "-But… We've never discussed that!

-Well, that's why you all put me in charge, remember? You wanted me to take the decisions that needed to be taken, without all the endless discussions.

-Not by running over our heads! You're not the only one in charge, here!

-Actually… I kind of am. Look, I don't know how to make you understand that there is too much to be done to stop and talk about it, and wait for everyone to agree. I made a call that needed to be made, and trust me, that just stopped a revolt.

-Clarke, they may call you that, but you're not a Commander, remember? That's not how it works. You don't get to keep me in the dark and only come to me when it suits you.

-Are you sure you're not talking about another issue, here?

-That has nothing to do with…

-Doesn't it?"

They both went silent when the door opened, on Octavia, who looked torn between being exasperated and jaded. "-How many times are you going to do this, exactly? Don't you think we all have more important things to do?

-I think we should settle that once and for all, mostly," Clarke replied. "-So now if you can leave us, there's something I have to tell your brother _in private._

"-No way," The girl protested. "-I gave you way enough privacy on the radio with Lexa because God only knows what's up between you two, but you're not getting me out now!

-Well, she's your sister," Clarke told Bellamy, turning back to him. "-You decide if you want her to…

-There is no reason to bring this up. This is not what I was talking about.

-No, it's just why it all annoys you so much.

-It annoys me because you just took a rash decision without consulting any of us and put it at work as if you didn't have to answer to anyone. We're still in a democracy, did you forget that point?

-Isn't that exactly why we actually took over the Council? To be able to take decisions and execute them faster?

-Yes, but that doesn't mean forgetting who we are in the process and turn into dictators!

-Can you tell me what that is?" She spat, on the verge of frankly shouting at him. "-Who are we, exactly?

-We're the good guys, Clarke!

-We killed hundreds –no, that's just me- thousands of people in our way to survival! People who didn't deserve it, innocent people! People who died because we messed up, because we didn't care, because one of us freaked out and lost it! Will you please tell me in what twisted world that makes us the good guys? No, don't even answer. I know you're about to justify everything that we've done, but the truth is, even if you do came up with good reasons, good excuses for every one of those deaths, that's all it is, excuses. And none of these will make us the good guys.

-So what? You're just gonna throw moral away because of what we've done?

-I am not throwing moral away just because I did not consult you on one decision! And the reason you're angry at me for doing this has nothing to do with this decision, and you know it.

-Stop saying this! I'm angry because you crossed us all, that's plenty enough.

-I haven't crossed anyone! But how do you think it's gonna go if every time there's a crisis, I have to say to all of the Clan leaders "Excuse me for a minute, I have to talk about this to all of my friends before I can make any decision"? What message do you think that sends, exactly?

-That we work as a team!

-That the Sky leader is weak. That she's not the one to deal with, because the real power lies somewhere else.

-You're the one who keeps saying that we need to work as a team, Clarke. Where does it fit in your new queen thing?

-We do! But in front of the grounders, we have to show strength, a strength they can respect! Lexa gets how we work, but for most of them… In other circumstances, I would have discussed that with all of you, you know that, but this had to be answered immediately, and I couldn't take the risk to do otherwise. They can't have doubts about who's in charge.

-Well, _I_ might be starting to have doubts.

-Wow, hey, both of you, get back to the ground!" Octavia shouted, reminding to both of them the she was still in the room as well. "-You," She turned at Clarke for this "-you should have found a way to warn us, this is big, our people are not at your disposal. You, you stop yelling at her. We established before that she doesn't take decisions for nothing, and if she thought this was the best thing to do, she earned a little credit about it.

-Thank you, Octavia," Clarke said, softly, surprised of hearing Octavia take her side –kind of.  
"- And Bellamy, I stand by what I said. What just happened isn't the bottom of your problem with me, and we should talk about that. You can't just let it interfere with…

-For the last time, it is not about that!

-Well, that's a wonder you started resenting my every move at the same exact time, then!

-What the hell are both talking about, seriously? Whatever happened that…

-It's none of your business, O!" Bellamy barked at his sister.

"-If you're fighting about something personal when you need to be working together, it impacts us all, so yeah, it is.

-We are fighting over nothing personal, all right?" He protested. "-It's about what Clarke did tonight and…

-Ok, so you totally are.

-Goddamit, O…

-Wait, are you two…" She stopped to look at them successively, indicating Clarke that she had been wrong previously when she thought that Bellamy had told his sister what happened between them.

"-No," Bellamy said in a firm tone.

-Well…

-Clarke!

-Seriously? You two…" She was stopped by Bellamy.

"-Once, for god's sake, and that's none of your concern!"

-Oh, my… Oh, wow. But… I mean, you and Lexa…

-Me and Lexa what?" Clarke cut her.

-Well… You know…

-I really don't. Is that what you actually all think?

-No! I mean… Well, kinda. Raven thinks that, at least. And Monty. And me.

-Me too.

-Look, there is nothing… What do you mean, you too, Bellamy? You're still set on that? I mean, after…

-There was nothing very convincing from you.

-Oh, you sure seemed very convinced, though. Several times.

-Wow, too much information!" Octavia protested with an offended tone. "-All right, you won, I'm out! And Bell, she's right. Your all attitude, here, not about politics, so you better solve that once and for all! And _quickly_!

-This is _not _about us!" Bellamy started again as soon as Octavia left the room. "-And _you _are the one who needs to get this idea out of her head! Do you realize what you've done tonight, Clarke?

-I think that's you who don't realize what I did tonight! You have no idea of what would have happened, if I hadn't…

-Hadn't what? Went to promise them anything to make them stay? Sucked their asses and begged them? How does that make you look strong to th…"

Clarke had pinned him against the wall before he had had the time to finish his phrase, and she blocked him with her arm.

"-Sucked their asses? _Sucked their asses? _I just stopped our damn army to take off, you idiot! I've been working my ass off to make an entire nation respect us, to make sure that their leaders stay on our side! I've literally took their Commander's interim, we're finally about to strike back, which we'll be able to do because of what I've done!" Completely unconsciously, she was slamming him against the wall as she yelled at him. "-I am dealing with psychotic killers who rule hundreds of other professional killers, most of whom would like nothing more than slaughter us all at the first occasion, people whose families and friends we may have killed, I actually manage to get them to fucking obey us, and you-" She grabbed his shirt once again to make him step away from the wall and threw him against it again. He could have stopped her, had he tried, but he was just too baffled to even try to resist, and she didn't realize she kept doing it. "-You keep making all of this even fucking harder than it is" She slammed him once more "-You keep" Slam "-you're the one, among all people of this planet, one of my people, the closest one I got, you're the one" Slam "-you're the one I should be afraid of? You're the one who keeps trying to mess all this up" Slam "–just because" Slam "-you're not happy with me?

He finally reacted as she stopped screaming, panting, her hand still fisted on his shirt and her arm across his chest.

"-Clarke, what the hell…" He tried to shrug her arm off, and as she didn't loosen up even a little bit, caught it to twist it –not hard enough to hurt her, if she had been fine, but the torsion went all the way up to her hurt shoulder and she reflexively tried to jump back, which only made it worse, with a yell of pain she couldn't help. He let go immediately, his eyes widening with concern.

"-Clarke, I didn't know you were hurt, I'm so sorry, I…"

She looked at him, her knees buckling under her weight. He looked back, and they stayed facing each other until he took a step to her.

"-I'm so sorry, Clarke. Look, I never…"

Her legs were about to give up and let her down, and when he reached to her, she let him take her in his arms, and clung to him, her face buried against his chest.

"-I'm sorry," he said again as she closed her own arms around him. "-I'm sorry, Clarke.

"-I can't do that without you," she answered –and her voice completely broke before she ended her sentence, and she finished in tears. "-Please, Bellamy, I know I messed up with you, but you can't punish me like that. I can't handle you and the end of the world at the same time. I need you, Bell, I need you to support me –I can't be a leader without you, please…"

He held her tighter. "-You'll never have to. I'm here, Princess. We're a team. Always were, always will."

They both reentered the Council Room few minutes later, and every one of their friends precipitately lowered their heads and pretended to have been working, which made Clarke realize that they probably had heard her yell at Bellamy even through the two doors. To make things even more obvious, her tears had left recognizable traces on the blood and the paint on her face –that was why grounders never cried, she had told to Bellamy as they reconciled, and he had smiled at the poor joke.

She took back her place at the end of the table. "-Everyone, you have your instructions. As soon as the meeting with the leaders will be over, I want all of you to start working on it. Cade, you can go now."

She asked Octavia for blue paint, and both of them redrew the Sky blue wings on their faces; Bellamy, after a hesitation, asked her to do it for him as well. Their looks didn't leave each other's as she painted him the wings. "-Thank you," she told him, in a very low voice, as she finished.

The chiefs were all there, most of them with their seconds; Clarke saw Octavia's eyes widen at the sight of Wundar. Her other friends had never met him, and didn't know that he had been two-eyed until sooner in the night, but Octavia knew –there was fear in the look she briefly gave Clarke. Auri came to place himself next to her, saluting her. She acknowledged with a nod.

"-I'll let all of you know when the teams will be send –it will take a week for the latest. It won't change anything, so I don't want to hear protestations about the order they'll be sent in," she said after a necessary introduction. "-Now, to the point. Your people saw one of you challenge me tonight, and that might leave the wrong impression to some of them. This one" –she designated Wundar "-kneeled to me and all of you recognized me as their leader in Indra's tent. Today, it is time to make that public, so all of your people know who's in charge as well.

"-What do you expect from us, exactly? That we all kneel to you as he did?

-That you take the same oath you took when joining the Coalition. You've all sworn to obey the Commander, to place your duty to her and the Coalition before the one you have to your clan. I won't ask you to swear that to me, but I want you, in front of your people, to swear that only your obedience to the Commander will surpass the one you'll owe to me."

She had kept looking at Nia, who was the one who had talked, while speaking. The Ice Queen rose, and Clarke thought there was about to be another confrontation, but the woman surprised her by being the first to kneel to her.

She was also the first to do it, few hours later, in front of both archers and grounders. Clarke was surrounded by Octavia at her right side and Bellamy at the left, her favorite coat back on –Nol had brought it to her, sewed up in the back exactly as her own skin was.

"-Following the wills of the spirits and the Commander, I swear fealty to you, Clarke kom Skaikru, and swear that my duty to you will only be surpassed by my sworn duty to the Commander and the Coalition."

Clarke offered her hand to Nia, who took it before getting back on her feet. Octavia had told her this was the grounder way to accept a sworn oath.

She did the same with Elissa, Wundar, Tangas, Arysthe, Kotkarao, Artaras, Terell, Da'Chel, Eris, Sarita, Auri and last Indra, and when the latter took her hand and rose, Clarke saw the grounder army –not just the Grasslands and Cave people, but really every one of the thousands of warriors of the camp, kneel in one move. Behind her, the Blake siblings stiffened, but she didn't pay attention. _Her people _were kneeling down to her.

…..

On the second night in Polis, as the first half moon of winter had turned into a shiny croissant, Lexa was awoken by a flow of light coming from the back room of her suite –a silvered light coming from where she had stocked the four cores.

She rose out of bed, considering the curtain made almost translucent by the light coming through. It bathed all the room in silver. It wasn't irradiating, though; she would have been burning alive if so. No, the cores were active in a different way. Maybe transforming, as Leal said they did once in the boxes.

She slowly walked to the backroom, pushed the curtain away from her way and stepped in front of the cores. They were all showing the same face, of a woman. An enraged woman.

"-Commander," it said in English. Lexa blenched. "-I don't know how you did this," the metallic, fake voice, continued, "-but when I undo it, you will both regret it. Especially her, but you too, Commander, when she is mine forever and you are left alone weeping for her."

The cores all flashed at the same time, forcing Lexa to back off, protecting her eyes, and when she opened them again, there was only liquid silver in the boxes, the way it had been for the last days. She reached to one of the boxes in only two steps and grabbed it with fury.

"-Listen to me, you demented machine. If you harm Clarke in any way, I'll make sure to not only destroy you but to also make you understand what pain is before, and to make it last so long that _you_'ll be the one with regrets. _Leave her alone._"

Nothing changed in the boxes, nothing to let her know if she had been heard.


	26. Chapter 26

Clarke spent the following week walking back and forth between Camp Jaha and the Grounder camp to organize the expeditions. She had kind of lost track of time, mostly because she was too busy to not be up at night, so she had took the habit to get short times of sleep whenever she could between two meetings and it came as a surprise when Raven made her realize that six days had already passed since the day of the oath. Half of the expeditions had left already, the last containers were about to be finished and the thought struck her that she hadn't had even a beginning of headache since she had confronted Alie.

The week had been hard on her anyway, especially because of her back injury –the first night after the oath day, she had awoke from a nightmare, literally fighting her blanket, the sheets wet under her, and at first she thought that she had been sweating a lot; she had soon realized that what she really did was moving so much in her sleep that she had pulled half of her stiches and soaked her bed with blood. Once in the infirmary, she had had to beg Jackson to make him promise he wouldn't tell anything to her mother. Despite the meds, it had been painfully inflamed during the first days, making her feverish and tired. Every time she saw herself in a mirror, she thanked Octavia for having the idea of the warpaints, under which she could hide how bad she looked. But at least, no headaches. No Alie's dreams. She would have like to think that Sarita's powder had managed to do what the scientist's antidote couldn't and freed her brain from Alie for good, but she knew better than this. She could still feel it her presence. But it had weakened or slowed her down, and that was good enough for now.

On the surface, Raven looked happy about having finished her task in the exact delay she had been given, but Clarke could see that her enthusiasm was mostly faked, and finally asked her what was wrong. The brunette didn't answer immediately and Clarke thought she was about to close down and pretend that everything was fine, but after a hesitant look to her, she muttered an answer.

"-It's Finn's birthday. He would have been eighteen today."

She barely stood Raven's look when the girl raised her head at her and tried to stay composed.

"-I'm sorry, Raven.

-For what? You lost him too." Back to her usual self. Clarke stood there, speechless. They had never talked about him, but every time Raven had mentioned him after his death, it had been pretty obvious that she blamed her.

"-Sorry that you had to go through that. I can't imagine losing the family I have left."

Raven stopped focusing on the container she was working on to face Clarke.

"-He's… wasn't the only family I have left. Monty, Jasper, Octavia and Bellamy, you… You're my family.

-Raven…"

Raven shrugged, as embarrassed by her moment of emotionality. "-But that's a lot more people than what I'm used to, so don't count on me to remember all of _your _birthdays."

This made Clarke smile sadly as Raven turned back to her work. She didn't have a chance to really get back at it, since Clarke grabbed her arm to pull her into a hug.

"-You better start learning the dates, though, because I'm gonna make sure you don't lose any more family."

The girl hugged her back, silently, and held her tight for a full minute before letting go of her.

…

One of the birds, a little brown haired girl, was standing behind the door of Clarke's bedroom when she opened it, soon after dawn. She had knocked, timidly, and the sound had been enough to pull Clarke out of the half-sleep that was all she had managed to get this night. She couldn't remember the name of this girl, but she knew her face well. Or maybe she just never even asked her name.

"-What is it?

-Octavia asks to see you in the Council room, Princess."

As the grounders, the birds never quit calling her Princess. She had long stopped trying to get rid of this title.

"-Did she tell you what it's about?" She asked, while going back to the inside of her bedroom to get warmer clothes than the ones she slept in. The girl took a look supposed to be discreet to the inside of the room. Clarke didn't pay attention. There wasn't anything that couldn't be seen by anyone.

"-No, she just told me to be fast.

-All right. Thank you. Go get yourself breakfast, now. Or get more sleep, the sun isn't even up."

The girl nodded, although Clarke didn't know which suggestion she was nodding at. She watched her get away, wrapped in many layers of clothes, dark spot on the snow, and wondered about the kind of world this kid would grow up in. If she ever had a chance to grow up, that was.

Octavia was waiting in the Council room, Kane next to her; by their side were standing two grounders, young men, who looked nothing like those she knew. They both wore tattoos that looked like scales all over their faces instead of the different marks of the Clans, and their hair weren't braided but let free on their shoulders and backs. The two had equally tanned skin, but while the oldest of them had brown hair and eyes, the other had clear blue eyes and was even blonder than she was, which was something she had never seen among grounders before. Even their clothes were different; instead of the rough fabric and metallic pieces of armor, they wore smooth leather and fur exclusively.

They kneeled down when she entered the room, before Octavia or Kane had time to explain anything to her.

"-Skai Prisa," the brown-haired one started. "-We bring the salutation of Queen Luna. Your ambassadors have been welcomed to her court with joy and your warnings received with gratitude and worry. The Queen has sent her daughter to represent her to your War Council. She and her escort will be there later in the day."

Their formalism surprised Clarke a little –she was getting used to the way most grounders disregarded hierarchy when they talked. She made them rise from their kneeling position and assured them she was equally happy to receive their princess and to learn that Luna was more than ready to join the alliance. Which she was, even if the way she had to formulate it to match their manners seemed weird to her. She had had troubles to understand the exact status of the Boat people among the Coalition; what she got was that while they were technically part of it, they weren't, as most Clans, under Lexa's authority but more of a free ally that swore to never engage hostility. That meant that Luna had no obligation to fight this war by their side and that had been worrying Clarke, since they depended on her fleet to attack Alie's main base. Apparently, Lexa had been right when saying that Luna wouldn't be a problem. Against her will, the thought made Clarke think back to the night she just spent; she had been almost sleeping when the bird had woken her up, but before that, she had been turning in her bed for hours, only to finally give up and get out of the Arch to stand outside, in the snow, looking at the sky. The first moon of winter had finally died, and the second one was starting to get fuller. She had never been so scared of the night sky. There was only three to four weeks before the end of the delay, now, and if a part –the stupid one- of her couldn't wait for that time to pass, mostly she knew that those weeks were the last where she could still have hope. And what the hell would she do, when Lexa would fail to come back? Take her place while waiting for a six years old kid to pop out of nowhere and lead them?

She forced herself to come back to the present moment. She'd have plenty of time to be heartbroken _after _the end of the second moon, there was no need to ruin the last moments where she could still pretend that Lexa might keep her word and come back, come back to her at the door of the camp. And clearly, there was much to do, starting by properly welcome a princess –a real one- who happened to be a potential and capital ally.

She set a meeting with the chiefs of the Clans in Auri's quarters for the end of the afternoon, letting to the delegation of the Boat people time to arrive and to meet with her first. It was around midday when the riders came out of the woods in the direction of the camp.

The messengers sent by the Princess had surprised Clarke by their differences from the other grounders, and the rest of the delegation only accentuated this feeling. The sea people didn't look like warriors at all. Most of them wore jewels, most of them were _smiling _to those of the Sky people who had assembled to see them arrive. Not all of them had tattoos, but those who did were all surrounding one rider, who Clarke assumed was their princess.

She seemed younger than her, and Clarke thought she looked incredibly innocent and sweet for someone born and raised in this world. The princess had spotted her as well, which wasn't difficult since she had her war paints on and the Blake siblings by her sides, slightly behind her. The sea people set apart when their princess dismounted her horse, creating a living hallway between Clarke and her.

The princess slightly bowed –without expressing any submission, it looked more like a salutation between equals, from Clarke's point of view.

"-Princess Clarke of the Sky people," she saluted. _Princess Clarke. Now I've heard it all,_ Clarke thought at the greeting. "-I am Yara, second daughter of Queen Luna," the sea princess continued. "-It is an honor to meet the Commander's newest ally."

-It is an honor to meet you as well, Princess Yara of the Sea people. I hope _we_ will be each other's newest ally soon."

A prudent smile made its way on Yara's lips as she answered. "We sure want the same things, then. Shall we begin?"

Clarke let the delegation with Kane –he was somewhat good in foreign relationship, which was weird for someone who had been raised to be a politician in the Arch, but was still useful- and took Yara to the Council room to talk to her privately. She had been ready to take Octavia with her as she did when meeting the Clans leaders, but the princess asked –very politely, but still pissing Octavia off- for a one-to-one meeting.

"-Octavia is my second. She has my trust," Clarke replied.

"-I don't doubt it," was Yara's answer, proffered on a very accommodating tone. She then turned to Octavia as the girl was about to enter the room behind her. And said nothing. She only looked at her, a politely waiting expression on her face.

"-Octavia, leave us," Clarke gave up. It wasn't worth offending the princess, who clearly knew what she wanted. Her friend shot her a furious look before settling near the door. Clarke closed it after entering, and turned to Yara, who had taken place next to the table.

"-So," the princess said as soon as the door was closed, surprising Clarke by her change of attitude. "-Let's get serious. This is a map of the Coalition, yes? What about I complete it with one of our territories on the sea and we see how this is going to work? If Alie's bases are located near rivers, we can…" She finally noticed the way Clarke was looking at her. That was, baffled by the sudden change from the mannered princess to what now seemed like a general on the field. She already had a map displayed on the table.

"-Wh… We haven't even…

-Oh, yes, we are ally if that means not fighting each other and fighting Her together instead. Was that your question?

-Pretty much. But seriously, that's it? Doesn't your Queen want to at least know who we are before…

-Clarke –May I call you that? I mean, as royals we have a protocol to respect, when in public, but it gets annoying really fast in private. In general, I find that things move forward faster it we don't bother with it." She raised her head at Clarke, not fully smiling but with an expression that suggested it anyway.

"-Please. I actually prefer it." Clarke answered, thinking that her first impression had been wrong: maybe Yara really was sweet, but she certainly wasn't as young and innocent as she appeared, and there surely was a good reason why her mother had sent her as ambassador.

"-Perfect. We take our engagement to the Commander very seriously, Clarke; and as I know Lexa, the one thing she doesn't do it trust the wrong people. You are her ally, this Alie is dangerous to all of us, that it all we need to know.

"-Oh. Well, that sure makes things simpler than I expected. Since we seem to be talking frankly, can I ask you why you were sent? I mean, why you specifically?

-The Queen can't leave the sea-city. This is one of our unbreakable rules. My aunt would have been sent, surely, but she was…We assume she has been taken by what you call Overseas Men.

-I'm sorry. We lost people too.

-So I've been told. Both of our people need to win this, Clarke.

-This is the... The map of your territory? I thought you only lived on the sea. I mean, how do you map sea? Isn't it just…. A lot of water?" Clarke finally asked after a silence. She was trying to evaluate Yara's sincerity. She seemed too frank to be lying, but of course, that would be the impression a liar would want to give. The princess clearly held back a laugh at her question.

"-It sure is, but we map the streams that make for a safe trip and those you don't want to get taken in, the surrounding of the coasts, the islands… All you need to navigate our lands. You don't know a lot about the seas, do you?

-We're not called Sky people for nothing. But we learn fast. What were you… Is that Alie's island?

-Yes. There were always legends about this island, and the trip there is dangerous… We never needed land so much that we had to set foot there." Yara hesitated before continuing: "-She was there a long time, wasn't she? Enough to starts stories about the City of Lights that everyone knows about even though no one has ever seen it… But we don't understand why she has only started to act now."

Clarke, focused on the map, sneaked a look at her, without answering. She had been wondering about Alie's story as well, and nothing she knew had helped her to come up with an answer. It seemed like Alie's attacks had started right at the time when she had encountered Thelonious Jaha, but clearly, she had been preparing the all thing for years, so yes, why now? Had the Sky people involuntarily brought her something she needed? That wasn't a safe theory to share with someone from another nation she just met.

"-What are those?" Yara asked, pointing at the representation of silver-eyed concentrations on the Coalition map. Clarke realized that when their messengers had left for the sea-city, they didn't know about the silver-eyed yet, and she explained what they were to Yara. The princess didn't try to hide her fright.

"-On the bright side," Clarke continued, "-We'll be able to neutralize most of the Wastelands in a short time. Few have already been deactivated by the Commander and…

-Is Lexa out there with thousands of brainwashed people ready to attack?" Yara suddenly asked, cutting Clarke's sentence.

-Yes," Clarke said dryly. "-She is to come back in few weeks." Yara grunted.

"-I guess she knows what she's doing, but I personally wouldn't risk strategic assets on the field in those circumstances.

-Well she didn't exactly ask for anyone's opinion," Clarke answered automatically, her tone more bitter than she would have liked. She didn't know this girl, it was no good to let her know, even indirectly, about her relation with Lexa. Although the relation Clarke was starting to wonder about was the one between Yara and Lexa. The princess called the Commander by her name, with a surprising familiarity. Her answer made Yara laugh, frankly, this time.

"-I expect not.

-Do you… You seem to know her well enough, am I wrong?

-We were still children when Lexa first came to the sea-city. She was already Commander, but she was thirteen nonetheless, same as me, and my sister was just a little older. We sort of bonded back then. With her second too, but you wouldn't know her, she died three years ago.

-Costia? I heard about her.

-Oh? Well, yes, Costia. Lexa wasn't as… hard, back then, and my mother thought it was very good for us to be friends. She thought it could only be good for the future of our nations."

It left Clarke thinking. She hadn't pictured Lexa actually having friends. It made sense that she hadn't always been as closed as she knew her, but still, she couldn't really imagine her, like, hanging out with anyone. Thirteen years old, she thought. So young.

"-Anyway, I suppose we can't really move forward before she is back, but we can still figure our options out. I think several of Alie's bases would be reached faster by the rivers. And given the situation with what you call silver-eyed, it would also be safer for your soldiers to travel on water.

-Yeah, but do you even have enough boats to…

-Ships. And we have enough ships for anything, Clarke. They are our lands.

-So we could start placing them where they need to be without Alie even knowing it…

-What do you mean? Does she know it when people travel by land?

-We think that… She sort of controls the turned ones from where she is, so that implies she knows about their situation. So if silver-eyed see our soldiers and attack…

-It means that she knows about your soldiers as well and the silver-eyed attack because she orders them to. Okay. So unless your army manage to avoid any encounter with silver-eyed, she will know we're coming.

-Yeah. But if we really can make them travel on rivers instead of trekking through the lands, that gives us a chance to take her by surprise. What are those signs around her island on your map?

-It's the way we map the coastal streams. Her island has dangerous surroundings, which I guess isn't a coincidence. It won't be easy to approach. Actually, the safer way would be to start the travel from the sea-city, to arrive by…

-Well, it's not like we can all go to the sea-city. Can't we just…

-Why not? Most of the fleet is there anyway, and when it comes to the main attack, to Alie's island, it would be the best base to launch it. I assume either you or Lexa will be leading this attack, and if so, the one of you who will better leave from the sea-city. It's closer from the island that your camp."

Clarke put her map of the Coalition right next to the map of the seas. Yara was right, launching the maritime attack from the sea-city would make for a shorter journey on the sea, a shorter delay… But that implied travelling there to begin with. Leave the camp. Which she couldn't do as long as Lexa wasn't there. She had succeeded to impose herself among the grounder leaders, but certainly not enough to think that some of them wouldn't take profit of her absence. Once again, despite her best efforts, it all came back to this: if Lexa never came back, the situation was basically desperate.

"-How long does it takes to get to your sea-city?

-Few days to the sea, a week on it. If everything goes well. This winter is a little windier than most, so we can expect few stormy days, but nothing we can't handle.

-Is it? It's our first winter on Earth, so we don't have anything to compare it to.

-Right." The princess glanced at her. "-It must be amazing to discover it all at once."

It had been amazing, Clarke remembered… For around five minutes. The first time she had felt the solid ground under her feet, smelled the scents of tree, earth, real air, it had been a dream come true, and even better than all of what she had imagined. And there had been those blue flowers in the night, and the river where Finn had pulled her… She couldn't remember when she stopped paying attention to the things the Archers had been dreaming about for generations. Once in a while, she still found some part of her ready to be amazed, as the first time she had saw horses, or when Lexa had made her come outside to show her the falling snow, but mostly, all the wonders of Earths had been sucked away by wars and killings for her.

The thought of this snowy morning made her smile out of nowhere. She had still been trying to figure out how she felt about Lexa, but when she turned back to her that morning, to see her pulling a perfectly innocent look, she had suddenly saw a different Lexa, a flash of the girl she could have been if wonder hadn't been sucked away from her life as well. And she couldn't figure out how Lexa could still… How she wasn't completely broken after years of this, when just few months had been enough to completely shatter the girl Clarke had once been. She wondered if Lexa had been aware of her own smile when Clarke had started bombarding her with snow.

"-There was much more to discover than what we expected, and not everything was this amazing. But yeah, there are… Things that were definitely worth the trip from space."

Such as the smile of a girl she shouldn't even have met, a girl born a world away from her.

"-Anyway, I don't think we can decide that before Lexa is back. I can see how it would be better, but I don't think she would appreciate me booking her a trip on sea without her knowledge."

It made Yara chuckle. "-Yes, we know how little she enjoys surprises. That would not be a good diplomatic move. But in the meantime, we can meet with the leaders of the Coalition clans, there is much we are going to need to discuss with them. And your messengers said that you sent emissaries to the South Nation as well. Have you heard from the king yet?

-No. We don't know if they even got to him, I mean, there's this weather and the silver-eyed…

-I thought Wolf was with them.

-You know her?" Clarke asked with surprise.

"-Of course. Don't worry, if she went with your messengers, you can be certain that their message reached its destination.

-Both you and Lexa seem very certain about that girl. I don't understand why you trust someone who won't even tell where she really comes from.

-Does it matter, as long as she always does what she says and always has good information?

-Information that she probably got from someone else who trusted her to not spill it out. "

Yara shook her head, while following the zigzag of the rivers on the map. "-You'll see. She's useful.

-Well, in the meantime, we still don't know where king Allander stands, which limits our capacity of planning. Have you ever met him?

-No. The South Nation is really far from our territory, and his people never ventured at sea, so there never were any reasons for my mother to meet him. But from what I know, he is as great as a leader in time of peace as he is in war. Not every war lord can say the same.

-Not every war lord even has the chance to experiment peace, I suppose," Clarke mused out loud.

"-True. We on the sea are the lucky ones. But Lexa has certainly made huge steps in this direction.

-I… Hey, I can't find your island on this map.

-Our island?

-Well, the one where your city is. Your capitol.

-Oh, it's not on an island. It literally is a sea-city, Clarke.

-What do you mean?

-Floating wood city. Directly on the sea."

-What? But how…" Clarke stopped and tried to picture it. "-What about storms? How does it not sink like ships?

-Ships sink because they take water in and the weight pulls them down. It's a question of form, Clarke," Yara explained, nicely, with an amused smile as though she was teaching elementary things to a child. "-If you put, let's say a box of wood in water, it will sink, but a plank will stand above water no matter what. So, when a storm hits, the only danger is to be carried away by waves, not for the city to actually sink.

-Oh. Wow, it must be something.

-Yes. I hope you'll get to see it soon."

Clarke glanced at her and wondered whether this girl really was as trustworthy as she seemed. Maybe, just maybe the Sea people could be real allies.

…..

They stayed only one more day and night in Polis, which Lexa used to determine and plan different attacks and freeing of cities and villages. Where they arrived as a small team, they left as an army. They would split up along the way so units of warriors could join their affectations and finally start to fight back against Alie, but they would still be around fifty when they would reach the village of Riverhead, where the boy who would one day be Commander after Lexa lived.

Even though they were many more than during the trip to Polis, they progressed faster; previously, they had been barely twenty, each of the horses fighting snow and wind to keep marching, but now, they could take turns, a line of riders trampling the snow, opening the way and protecting the followers, and exchanging places after a while. They had carts, but with enough draft horses to not be consequently slowed down because of it.

As the second moon of winter grew night after night in the sky, the diminishing army rode its way to the territory of the Trikru. They encountered two hordes of silver-eyed, but always in lower number than them, and the confrontations ended quickly both times.

Almost three weeks after their departure, they reached the frontier between the Mist Clan and the Woods Clan. There was a large and wild river streaming between the two territories, which split along its way in two branches before joining again less than a mile further, and on the ground between the two river's arms, a village. The day Commander Henra died, when her spirit had found a thirteen years old Lexa, a child was born there. A possibly future Commander. The only one left, now.

Silver-eyed were swarming in the surroundings of the river and the village. They were much more than Lexa's little army, this time. On the island, beyond the walls of the village, a fire was burning –not a wildfire but a bonfire, controlled, that could only had been lit and fed by humans.

Lexa called a meeting with Maykl, Shaïra and Kaius, the commandant of the last unit of warriors still with them.

"-We need to reach that village by any means," she said. "-The silver-eyed are not smart, but there is still a diversion that we…

-Pardon me, Heda," Kaius intervened, "-But what makes this village so important? We'll lose precious lives if we try to get there.

-There is someone important to our nation who we must save," Lexa answered. She hadn't been sharing the knowledge of the possible end of the line of Commanders. Titus, Maykl and Shaïra knew, and that was more than enough.

"-One person? But…

-Are you questioning the Commander?" Shaïra stopped him. The warrior realized what he had been doing and bowed apologetically.

"-Never, Heda. My apologies.

-There is a diversion, as I was saying, that we can use. All the silver-eyed we have encountered went for me, every time. We can send them away from the village long enough for the army to rescue the villagers.

-Does that mean using you as a bait? They are fast, they'll likely get to you, and if the army is needed in the village, you won't have enough warriors to….

-I know that. No, I meant to send someone wearing the red sash. From far enough, that is all the silver-eyed will see. This team will indeed not make it, but will give us time to cross the river to enter the village, and cross it again to the other side.

-What about the carts?

-Too slow to be taken. We'll have to share the provisions. We're about to enter the lands of Trikru anyway, there are villages intact there, Kaius's unit will get new carts for the rest of their travel, and we won't be far from Camp Jaha. I have no need to tell you that this will be tight –the river is strong and won't be easy to cross, but we need to be on the other bank before the silver-eyed are done with the diversion team."

Shaïra had –as usual- volunteered to lead the most endangered team, and Lexa had refused –too promptly, too violently. It had come as a vibrating "-_No_!", and Shaïra had watched her with surprise –thankfully, she had waited for Kaius and Maykl to be away, and no one else witnessed Lexa's reaction.

"-You are needed by my side," she explained dryly. "-The diversion is a suicide-mission. I will not send my personal warriors there."

She could have sworn that the girl was holding back a smile when she accepted Lexa's words. Maybe she _should _send her, Lexa thought with irritation, without meaning a word of it. That would stop her to smirk at her Commander's words.

"-And contrary to the rest of the army, you know exactly who we are looking for. If it goes wrong and that you have to make a call, remember: the boy is our absolute priority. If his life is in the balance, there is nothing, not our warriors, nor the villagers, that will outweigh it. Do not _tell _anyone who he is, but if necessary, do tell them he is the one we are here to save.

-Yes, Heda."

The first part of their plan went exactly as they imagined it; at the vision of what they took for the Commander, the silver-eyed started to move towards the team, first by small groups, then all of them, starting to run as the team galloped away. The army threw itself in the river, by groups roped together, forcing the horses in the stream. The water was painfully cold, but they didn't have to stay long in it.

Around the middle of the river, Lexa felt small rocks and sand slip under her feet, creating a deeper hole in the ground, and she clung to her horse, steadier than she was, to avoid losing her balance; she turned to those behind her to warn them. As she reached the bank, helped out of the water by Maykl, she saw one warrior in the latest of the group loose his footing. Roped to the others, he wasn't carried away by the stream, but the jolt had made one of the horses step out of his way, and he must have put its hoofs in one of the holes, for he lost balance, and fell down on his side, tossing two men in the water; its frenetic moves stopped them to even try to get back up, and the all group was soon carried underwater as the horse got back on his paws and tried to run away. The previous group turned back, and Lexa, hating Alie even more for this, had to shout them to let it go, that they didn't have time. None of the fallen men made it; the panicked horse fell down a second time, and this one was carried away by the stream as well.

The watchers on the villages had seen the army cross the waters, and they had opened the doors when the warriors arrived. Lexa stepped in first, surrounded by her lieutenants. Someone in the village recognized her, even though she and her army looked more like drowned rats than like a Commander and her warriors, and they went all hail to her. She stopped them quickly.

"-People of Riverhead, get ready to leave right away. The silver-eyed are coming back. Each of you must be roped up with a group of warriors. We will bring you in a safe place. And if he is still alive, bring me the child named Karmir."

The crowd split up immediately, parents grabbing children and friends grabbing each other to find warriors to team up with for the second crossing; and a child, alone, walked to Lexa. He raised his head at her, full of admiration –but not intimidated, she noted.

"-You are Karmir?" She asked in Triguedasleng. He seemed the right age.

"-Sure is, Heda," A man intervened.

"-You're his father?

-No, poor little one, his parents died when the silver-eyed first came. They were my friends, I took him in.

-When was he born?

-Almost six years ago, third moon of spring. The second night of that storm that lasted a week, you may remember…

-Yes. I wish to take him with me and my lieutenants.

-You wh…

-Why?" The child asked directly to her. He had a frank look that she liked. It didn't suit a Commander to be shy. How many of them had had the occasion to meet their successors?

"-To protect you. You might be more important than you know. Will you come with me, Karmir?"

The child's dark eyes met hers. He had a light brown skin, his hair were dark and curly, and his eyes exceptionally shiny –piercing.

"-Yes," he answered simply –in English, which made her smile. She had also learned the language of the enemy very soon, for she always knew she would be a warrior. He turned to his caretaker and nodded: "-I will be all right, Odion." The man's eyes flew from the child to Lexa, and then back to his little protégé. He nodded back.

As she joined Maykl and Shaïra, she felt Karmir's hand grope to the hilt of her sword. "-Do not…" She started, before stopping herself. She didn't want to discourage love of blades in a Commander, after all. It wasn't only meeting her successor, she realized; it was also a chance to instructhim herself. A Commander training her own successor was unheard of. She could make sure, with him, than all of what she accomplished wouldn't be undone. He was the future, she thought, and she could _shape _him.

She had him roped to Maykl –he was heavier than she was, and it was easier for him to resist the stream. The boy, in her lieutenant's arms, clung to his neck, still watching at Lexa, right behind Maykl.

It started to all go wrong as they started to reach the other bank –as she thought they would be all right for sure. She heard it before anyone was hurt –the sound of guns. Half a second later, warriors and villagers screamed and fell. She yelled to Maykl to cut his rope and bring Karmir to safety, and got Shaïra and the other roped to them to pass to the other side of the horse. They were close enough from the bank to reach it, but the tree line was almost eighty feet away –they were too exposed in the river, though.

A bullet mowed Maykl as he reached the bank, and he fell back to the water –but he dropped Karmir on the ground before. She saw him grab a rock few feets away, but didn't have time to feel relieved; the boy was now completely exposed, she was too far to get to him, and he seemed completely petrified.

"-Karmir, run to the trees! _Run!_" She screamed at him from where she was, fighting so hard against the stream that she was practically pulling the others roped to her. A warrior already on the bank heard her and went to pick up the kid on its way, but a bullet shoot him dead and he fell on the ground, making the child scream and slowing the two warriors and villagers still roped to him. They were shot as well, except for one –they were getting massacred, she realized.

She spotted Leal getting out of the water with her own group, closer from Karmir than she was, and shouted her to get the damn kid. The girl turned to her in a second and –Lexa was thrown back in the river when a horse reared in terror and fell backwards, hitting her in its fall. Water swallowed her, and for an instant, her all universe was unbelievably cold liquid closed above her, and the world went mute, until arms pulled her out of the stream. She went back above the water just in time to see the child propelled backwards and falliing to the ground, his face transformed in a bloody hole.

She screamed.

She had seen many deaths, people of all ages, but this child…

She finally got out of the river, cut her rope and tried to run to him, as if there were still any hope, as if she didn't just _fail _him, all the people with her, her _nation. _She never made it to the small body; she was brutally hit and sent to the ground feet further, as bullets whirled in the air where she would still have been if her hitter hadn't pushed her away. A warrior –Kaius- grabbed her and forced her on her feet, practically dragging her to the safe zone.

She collapsed in the snow, shaking, when he let go of her –on her knees and hands, not even caring that any survivor could see her, not even knowing it.

"-Commander!" A panicked voice called –she recognized Zeke at his hair, at their fiery color that existed only among Sky people. "-Are you hurt? Let me see."

She pushed him away –brutally enough to make him stumble.

"-Please, Commander, you have blood everywhere."

But she wasn't hurt, she thought confusedly. Then, she finally realized she was down on the snow, panting and trembling, got back on her feet, and turned to the river. There were dozens of bodies, and only a few people safe in the woods –Maykl was one of them, and Kaius and the two Sky people, but Karmir, she thought, Karmir was dead and she was now the last Commander.

She called Shaïra, on a trembling voice which she hated herself for –and no answer came. She was soaked in the icy water of the river, legs in the snow almost to the knees, and wind was howling and snowflakes whirling, but she hadn't felt cold until that precise moment. She slowly turned to the survivors. Then back to the bodies between them and the river.

And she spotted her, bleeding out at the exact same place where Lexa had almost been shot –she was the one who had pushed her out of the way. Still alive. One of the fallen ones tried to get up, and the shooters pulled him down, pierced by at least five or six bullets. Lexa had her first glimpse of them at this instant; they were hidden in the ruins of what had probably been a shore, and they weren't –they were only six, she realized with horror. Only they had been at the right place and had guns. And they were Overseas Men. The ones in white armors.

There were survivors trapped on the bank, and the ones in the woods couldn't do anything for them –the armors of the Overseas Men wouldn't be pierced by arrows, she knew it. Although…

She turned back to Zeke, who was tending a villager's injury.

"-Zeke, you and Leal have guns, right? Can you use it?

-Hum, I don't have so much experience, but I…

-Can you or not?"

He looked at her with dismay. "-Commander, no, I can't say that. But Leal is a good shot. And I can give you mine, I mean, your warriors can aim with a bow, I guess it's…"

She took the gun he offered without waiting for the end of his sentence –thankfully he had been smart enough to keep it in a waterproof holster. When she got to Leal, the girl was crying her heart out, curled up against a tree –she had a second of compassion, before remembering that Leal had been _right _next to Karmir –why hadn't she picked him up? What had happened that stopped her from saving him?

"-Get up. I need you."

No reaction.

"-_Get up!_" This time, the girl looked at her, just two blue eyes that stared at her from above her arm.

"-You really _never _feel anything, do you?" She heard coming from the Sky girl on a reproachful tone.

"-I don't have time to deal with your feelings. Get up now, before there is no one left to save."

-There are survivors?" Leal uncurled and got up with a slowness that exasperated Lexa. "-What can I do?

"-Shoot the ones who did that. Come."

Of course, the girl couldn't properly climb a tree, and Maykl practically had to lift her to the first branches, Lexa behind them.

"-They're right there. You need to get all six of them before they realize where this is coming from and fight back. Do you…" She interrupted her sentence as Leal loaded her gun and aimed without a hesitation. Three of the Overseas Men were dead before the others had time react, and by the time they started looking for the shooter, two others had followed. The last one threw himself on the ground, and the wall next to him blocked them to Lexa, Maykl and Leal's sight. Leal stayed still, breathing so imperceptibly that she seemed made of stone for the few seconds that passed before the Overseas man tried to crawl to another side of his shelter –looking to escape, Lexa guessed. At the second his head showed, the Sky girl fired again, and the bullet flew straight to the back of his head, pinning him to the ground.

Lexa quickly climbed down the tree, and send a warrior try the bank. Nothing happened. There wasn't any other shooter waiting in ambush. As the warriors claimed the area cleared, she raced to Shaïra's lifeless form and kneeled down next to her. Blood was still pouring out of a wound to the chest, and the girl moaned as Lexa touched her, looking for other injuries. She moved a little, and fresh blood flowed out of her mouth, but she didn't open her eyes.

Zeke joined her and made her step back, which she did without protestation –she had seen him work before and knew that among the healers they had with them, he was the only one who had any experience with bullet wounds. She left him and Shaïra to get to Karmir's body –for him, there was no hope, no matter how good the healer. He still had one eye untouched by the bullet, opened and she closed it –and couldn't bring herself to mutter anything about the end of his fight. His fight hadn't ended, it didn't even had time to begin! His fight should have begun when Lexa's one would have ended…

She heard someone coming behind her and turned to discover Leal, staring at the kid with wide eyes full of tears. It made her almost as angry as the attack itself.

"-Why didn't you grab him when I told you to?" She spat, and Leal jumped back with a scared face. "-You could have saved him, why didn't you?

-Because I was scared!" The Sky girl suddenly yelled at her. "-I didn't want to die and I ran away, ok? I ran because I was scared and _I didn't want to die, _can't you understand that, you psycho bitch?!"

She fell to the ground, blood coming out of her split lip and staining her face when Lexa hit her. She tried to crawl away with a moan of fear as the Commander kneeled in the snow, but not fast enough, and Lexa grabbed by the collar of her shirt.

"-_You ran_?"

The girl was now crying "-Please, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I was so scared!"

Lexa considered the girl in front of her, then let her go. Leal raised her head at her, wonder written in her eyes. Lexa gave her a cold look. "-You are the most pathetic thing I've ever set eyes on, Leal. You shamed your entire people today." The girl's face crumbled and she lowered her head, silently crying at Lexa's feet.


	27. Chapter 27

Hey everybody! Did you know that Conan Doyle meant to kill Sherlock Holmes? Fans freaked the hell out and managed to get heard so much (even before the days of Internet) that he was pretty much forced to scrap that and make up an all way for Sherlock to not be dead in the end.

I say, let's campaign (or boycott) so hard that they will have no choice but to correct what was obviously a HUGE mistake if they want the show to keep airing.

Comfort hugs to everyone who's also feeling heartbroken.

...

The pyre casted light and shadows far in the woods all night long.

They couldn't bury their dead; the ground was too hard, frozen and hidden under the snow. They had to burn them with the corpses of the Overseas Men, after retrieving all that they could use of their equipment: the white armors, the guns, the radios…

While the remaining villagers stayed on the bank under Maykl's supervision, Lexa took the lead of the warriors to cross the river again, to reach Riverhead. She had planned to go straight to the closest village after getting the villagers out, but they couldn't move now, unless they were ready to leave the wounded ones behind. They needed carts to transport the ones who had a chance to live, to at least find a safe place to leave them while the rest of the team continued its way to Camp Jaha.

Hitch the horses to the carts found in the now empty village was easy, but make them cross the river a fourth time with a dead weight tied to them bordered on impossible. Lexa had to pet the brown horse she was leading for two full minutes before he even accepted to put a hoof in the water. She pulled on its reins as he hesitated to force him to step further, which he did reluctantly. The water around her legs, then waist and chest didn't bother her as much. She was already feeling so cold that it didn't make such a difference. The stream pushed her against the horse when she reached the middle of the river, but both she and the animal kept going. As she turned back to see how the rest of the team was doing, her eyes caught moves on the other bank, the one they originally came from. The silver-eyed were coming back. When not fighting, they didn't move so fast; they were calmly walking and settling on the other bank, where they had been when Lexa and her warriors first arrived. Watching the village because they didn't know what happened. Watching so the next Commander couldn't escape. Lexa realized she had stopped going forward only when pulled by her horse, which made her stumble in the water, and the force of the stream completed her loss of balance. She lost foothold and her body came hitting the horse, who swerved brutally, frightened, before trying to gallop away. He couldn't accelerate much in water but still took few steps at a weird and violent pace, briskly dragging the cart behind him. The front of it hit Lexa's back before she could get back on her feet, sending her fully underwater. She immediately tried to fight her way back to the surface, but only to have the back of her head thump the cart that the horse had dragged above her as she fell. A dizzying pain spread in her head as she turned on her back and grabbed the bottom of the cart, holding her breath. The horse had stopped, effectively getting her stuck her under the cart, but she would just have to get out by the side and use it to get herself out of the water and on her two feet. She pulled herself at the edge of the cart, clinging to it as hard as she could to not be carried away –the stream was already hard to fight when standing partially on the water, but fully under it became a near impossible effort. The horse chose the exact moment when she slid on the side to start walking again, and her left hand was taken between the wheel and the bottom of the cart. She couldn't hold an exclamation of pain when her fingers cracked under the twisting pressure, and her immediate reaction to the massive swallowing of water that ensued was to cough it away–which only made it worse. It seemed like she couldn't stop herself, though, as if her lungs kept pumping against her will, desperately reaching for air where there was only the burning of water. She used her right hand to rip the other away from the squeezing of the wheel, shedding streaks of blood almost immediately carried away by the stream –same as her, since she was no longer holding the cart. She hit it again as the waters rolled her away, and tried to reach the surface, but she couldn't even tell where it was. She felt her heart thud to her ears and real, physical panic take over her. She kept involuntarily trying to breathe, and every try made the pain and fear worse.

She was slammed against another cart and instinctively gripped to it, her hands clenching with all their strength to the wood –a searing pain burned through all of her left arm as she pulled herself out of the water by climbing the side of the cart.

She took a first desperate breath that was followed by a coughing spell. She uncontrollably coughed and spat water, each try of breathing stopped by her body getting rid of the liquid, until everything started to get blurry around her. The buzzing in her head got stronger as the pain in her hand, chest and head seemed to fade away and suddenly she was back underwater, too weak to keep hanging on to the cart. Before she was taken in the stream again, though, one of the warriors leading the horse tied to this cart reached to her and pulled her to the surface. He kept her above the water, pressed against the horse to protect her from the stream as she resumed coughing. Her chest was uselessly rising and falling, reaching for an air that she couldn't get –until her lungs, with a violent spasm, finally rejected all the water she breathed in. It seemed to abrade the inside of her chest and throat, but nothing lessened the relief of the first deep breath she took. Another couching hit shook her entire body, and the warrior tightened his grip on her. Only few seconds later, she felt him lift her as he got out of the water, and he carefully laid her down, completely forceless, on the bank.

She tried to rise, to see how the others were doing, but barely managed to raise her head before her breathing was stopped by yet another cough, and as air escaped her once again, darkness descended on her.

…..

She had been hearing voices, murmurs around her, but through a haze of semi-unconsciousness –it was a searing twinge of pain in her hand that really woke her up. She opened her eyes to find herself lying on a fur, in a large tent, Zeke by her side. He was so focused on tending her wounded hand that he didn't realize she had awoken. She tried to talk, but only a raspy croak came out and even that was enough to hurt. She painfully cleared her throat as he turned a worried face to her.

"-Oh, Commander. How are you feeling?

-I'm fine" she replied. Her voice was hoarse and she had to clear it again, which ended in a wet cough that seemed to reverberate through her all body and especially in her pulsing head.

"-Er, I'm not so sure," Zeke said in an apologetic tone. She hissed when he pushed on one of her fingers. "-I'm sorry. Your index and middle fingers are broken, I have to tie them to a brace so they'll heal correctly.

-You should be taking care of those who really are hurt," she grunted. It occurred to her that she was lucky it wasn't her swordhand that had been caught by the wheel.

"-I did, Commander," the boy protested with much more assurance than she expected from him. "-And you _are _hurt. You hit your head _again._" There was a hint of reproach in his voice when he said that. "-I mean, it's not too bad, but still, there was only few weeks since last time."

She didn't pay attention. "-Where are we?

-Still near to Riverhead. We set the tent so your healers and I could work properly.

"-We can't stay here!" She attempted to get up, but at her surprise, Zeke stopped her.

"-Commander, please, you need to let me finish. It's been barely fifteen minutes since Maykl carried you here, we can't move before being done with all the wounded ones anyway and you need…" His voice died with his access of self-confidence as he realized that he was physically restraining the Commander. "-I'm sorry, I just meant to…" He mumbled something without looking at her. "-Just let me tend your hand, please." He finished in a murmur.

Now sitting on the water-soaked fur, she glanced around. There were injured people all over the tent, and healers busy with them, but there were definitely less people than when they had rescued the survivors on the bank. She felt Zeke take her hand again and let him, gritting her teeth at the access of pain he triggered.

"-Have we lost all those people?" She asked.

-Hum, some of them weren't hurt so badly, so we let them out, but, yes, there were a lot we couldn't do anything for… I'm sorry.

-Have you done the best that could be done?"

He looked hesitantly at her. "-The best we could do with that little equipment, yes.

-Then you have nothing to be sorry about." She saw him lower her head, focusing fully on her hand. She gulped –fire trailed in her throat- before asking her next question. "-Is Shaïra still alive?"

The boy's face lit up. "-Yes! My teachers always said you couldn't be a hundred percent certain about life or death diagnosis, but I'm pretty sure she's going to make it. She was kinda lucky, actually, most bullets only scratched her, it's only the one she took in the chest that really was dangerous, since it perforated the left lung. And let me tell you, dealing with a perforated lung filling with blood with no medical equipment and people all around who think they're gonna heal _everything _with fiery blades is not easy! But we managed pretty well, I have to say. Anyway, she's still unconscious, she lost a lot of blood, but she should be better soon."

Lexa relaxed, feeling like breathing suddenly got easier. There was at least one good news in the mess she had led her people into.

"-Zeke?" The boy looked startled that she had called him by her name. "-You do know my people value life as a very precious thing.

-Hum, yes, this is why taking it costs so much… I've been told?

-Yes. And also why it is highly rewarded to save as many as you did."

Zeke forgot about her hand for a second and looked at her. "-Commander?

-I would fail our customs if I didn't offer you some kind of reward.

-It's just my job, really. It's what I'm trained to do, you don't need to…

-Still. You saved many of my people, including one of my lieutenants. You left your people to come with us and accomplished more than what sole duty required. Name your wish."

This time, he seemed like he had definitely forgotten about tending her hand and he just stared at her for several seconds in a row before clearing his throat and stuttering something so low she couldn't be certain there were actual words in it. He blushed so hard that it made his red hair and freckles look almost colorless in regard. She waited for him to speak again, which he did, as hesitant as always, but spitting chunks of sentences fast between silences and hesitation.

"-I, hmm, I was never… There was an accident in the Ark when I was a kid, and a lot of people were hurt, and they didn't have enough doctors to tend everyone, and a lot of them died, my parents died, and I always thought I would help as much people as I could after that, and… And I'm, what I mean is, we've seen horrible things in this journey, and I wish I could just forget half of it, but I did, I helped, and I feel like for the first time I've been doing something that matters…" He looked at her, lowered his eyes, and kept talking without daring to cross her look. "-And if I'm not too much of a useless deadweight for you and your people, Commander, I'd… I wish I could… I could stay at your service. Even after we're back to Camp Jaha." His voice died and he resumed taking care of her hand, and after barely a second, seemed to think that her lack of a fast answer was bad news. "-I'm sorry, I…

-You don't need to be sorry. The medicine of Sky people is highly efficient, and I would have good use of a healer trained to your ways. If this is what you want, I will talk to your leader about it."

His face was split by a large, incredulous smile. "-Really?! Thank you, Commander!"

Once he was finished with her hand, he didn't protest when she got up, but insisted for her to drink a white liquid he presented her in a bowl, saying it would lessen the pain. He assured her there was enough for everyone, which was what finally made her accept –but she had to admit that it relieved her and let her breathe better.

She took a look at her injured warriors and villagers, trying to estimate how many she lost. Having her people killed to ensure a victory had always been hard to her, but losing them over nothing… She had failed, so badly, and her people were paying the price. They would pay the price of this defeat for generations.

She went to Shaïra last, before leaving the tent. As Zeke said, the girl was unconscious, but her hands were clenched on the furs and to Lexa's eyes she seemed in pain. Her breathing was labored, shallow, her skin pale and colorless.

This was Lexa's fault too, she thought. She had frozen on the battlefield like a little girl on her first battle would have done, and her lieutenant had almost been killed because of it. Anya would have been ashamed of her if she had seen her in this battle. Without Shaïra and Kaius, she would have been killed without even fighting back.

Shaïra had no reaction at her contact, but Lexa called her anyway, softly. She sighed when nothing came. "-Don't die," she told her. "-I still need you."

Outside of the tent, the survivors were working to the construction of the pyre. Maybe, when burning, shining in the night, it would draw other Overseas Men, or silver-eyed to this place, but by this time, Lexa and her people would have left. They would stay just long enough to light the fire.

When the huge fire started to gnaw the wood away, the sudden heat made her realize that she and most of her people were still soaked and that their clothes were literally starting to freeze on them. They didn't have time to stay by the pyre to dry, though; its light was surely visible miles away, as efficient as a beacon, and the only ones it could alert were hostiles to them. The warriors helped the healers charge the wounded ones on the carts, and the horses were split between the survivors –easily, since the Overseas Men didn't leave that many people alive. They just had to retrieve some horses that had fled in the woods during the shooting. The horse Lexa had rode since Polis had been shot, though, so she found herself a replacement black gelding, whose main radiation-induced default was, weirdly enough, the embryo of a third ear on the left side of his head. It was enough for him to have been taken out of the reproductive line, and she found herself uselessly musing about this as she watched the rest of her people getting ready to leave. Radiations. It had brought only diseases and death, immediate death as well as generations-long agony. Why, what did Alie have to win by hurting this world even more than it had already been? Even Lexa's worst enemies until then, the different clans she had to tame, the Mountain Men, had had reasons to fight –good reasons from their points of view- but what did this machine needed?

Her horse nervously shook his weird head when the smell of the burning bodies started to spread in the air, and she mindlessly patted him, before turning back to her people to give the order to leave the place that had witnessed her defeat. As she was about to take the lead, she saw a warrior offering a horse –quite small and docile looking- to Leal, and she led her gelding to them.

"-She doesn't get a horse. She demonstrated she was fast enough on her own two feet to follow us."

The warrior quickly bowed, taking the horse away as Lexa ordered the healers, travelling on the carts with the wounded ones, to not let her get on one of them. The Sky girl looked at her and had the nerves to start talking to her. Lexa unsheathed her sword without thinking and the edge of it flew to the girl's throat. Leal's eyes filled with fear.

"-Don't ever address me again," Lexa growled before the girl started another sentence.

"-I risked my life time and time again for your people," the girl protested. "-It's not fair to punish me for…"

Lexa took her sword away from the girl's neck only to slash her face with it, barely keeping herself to crush her under her horse's hoofs. Leal fell on the snow with a scream, and stayed down, her hand pressed against her cheek, blood flowing through her fingers, reddening and melting the snow it fell on. Lexa heard her starting to cry, mostly of shock and fear.

"-Punish you?" She hissed while forcing herself to sheath back her sword. "-Would you be one of my people, you wouldn't see the sun rise! If it wasn't for what I owe to your leader, I would have you burned with this boy you let die, and you dare complain about punishment? You should consider yourself lucky, coward."

She made her horse turn back to the path, leaving the Sky girl without a look behind her and started to lead them through the Trikru territory under the golden light of the pyre.

…

This was one of those mornings when the moon was seeable even in daylight. Its ghostly form was croissant-shaped again, a thinning croissant. The second full moon had come and passed, and it was going through its last phase before the beginning of the third moon of winter. There was barely ten days or so left, and less than a week before the moment when Lexa's team was supposed to be close enough to Camp Jaha to be reached through radios. Just few days before being finally set, Clarke couldn't stop herself from thinking. Just thinking about it was enough to make her sick in her stomach.

Next to her, Yara cleared her throat as to catch her attention and she stopped looking by the window to turn to her.

"-Yeah?

-You just didn't seem fully focused here. Are you having second thoughts?

-Hm-mm. No, I'm not excited about setting the fleet in position so soon, but we have to. I was just… Wondering about Lexa and Allander. I wish we would hear from any of them already."

The princess only had this expression that Clarke had learn to interpret as a way to say that she couldn't agree more. "-We can't wait so long, you know that. If we finally get Allander's support and that nothing is ready…

-You don't need to say it again, Yara. I know. With or without him, we'll have to strike eventually anyway. I'm still not sure about how you're planning to hide an entire fleet, though.

-You leave that to my people. Have you thought about…

-Going to your city? I told you, I can't leave before Lexa is back. I can't let the Clan leaders here without a Commander around and the only other option is to send them to Alie's bases _now_, and if we do that, we have no boats –ships- left. Not enough to sail back-ups from the South Nation if we ever have them.

-I know, but when she's back, you'll have to make some decisions. We can't wait forever to see what happens with Allander. And the sea-city…

-Is the best base we could do this from, yeah. I'm not contesting this, I just… don't trust Lexa's generals that much.

-You trust me. Why not them?

-Well, you never tried to raise an army _against _me. And it's not the same. Your people and mine share interests, and you're smart enough to realize it, which isn't the case of some of them. I don't know how Lexa deals with this… snake nest.

-They seem to be quite obedient to you, from where I'm standing.

-Oh, sure, as long as I'm here to watch them. I can't guarantee they won't forget why they chose to obey me the second I'm away. They certainly didn't waste time to feel that way about Lexa.

-Clarke…

-What?

-What do you plan to do if she doesn't come back?"

Clarke froze at the princess's question. This was the first time since she arrived almost two weeks ago that Yara addressed this matter. And as much as Clarke had been torturing herself with this question, she still didn't have the beginning of an answer.

"-I, ah, I… We…"

_What the hell? _She thought to herself, trying to keep her hands from shaking. _Why do I react like that? It's just a question about strategy. One I've been asking myself for weeks. _

"-I'm sorry I have to ask you this. I know you care about her, but we have to consider...

-What?" She snapped. Octavia and the rest of her friend, the grounders leaders, now the princess of another nation, was the entire population of Earth aware that she and Lexa cared for each other?

"-Well, I'm not blind, Clarke. It's nothing of a problem to me, but it doesn't change the fact that she might not come back, and we have to be ready for that."

Clarke clenched her jaw and fists to stop the trembling. She never had a panic attack in her entire life, but lately, the mere thought of Lexa's return –or rather of her non-return- was triggering physical waves of anguish. Because she knew there was no way the Commander had safely made this insane journey, and that in just few days, she couldn't even fool herself anymore.

"-I told you, I can't leave the Clan leaders. If it's needed, I'll send one of my people with you to the sea-city, Octavia or Bellamy, maybe, while I'll organize the attacks of her secondary bases from here."

Despite her best efforts, her hands were still shaking, and she felt tears form in her eyes and roll on her face. She wiped them away as quickly as she could, thinking that at least, it was only Yara with her. If she had lost control of herself, even as briefly, in front of one or several of the generals… She had been cautious around Yara the first days, not certain she could even begin to trust her, but the princess had slowly started to win her over. She always showed a disarming frankness whenever they were only the both of them and if she was planning anything else that what she was telling to Clarke, well, she was the best actress she had ever met. She also had this way, when dealing with non-leaders, to put on a formal Princess exterior who reminded Clarke of Lexa's Commander mask. Not that Yara was ever as cold and ruthless as Lexa, but it was the same principle. It was what Clarke herself had learned to do those last few months. Maybe Yara was only the second daughter, thus not her mother's heir, but she was a girl raised to put her private life on hold, to be a leader before being a person. Just like what Clarke was supposed to be now. Somehow, it made her feel like they could be themselves around each other. That was obviously what Yara thought as well, as she demonstrated on their very first meeting. Never let things show in front of their people, but no need to hide themselves when they were with other persons carrying the same burden. She could see how Lexa had allowed herself to befriend her.

"-All right." Yara said calmly, acting as if Clarke hadn't just lost it in front of her. "-That will have to do, I suppose. But maybe Bellamy rather than his sister. Octavia is a good second to you, but I don't think she has the leader fiber. Bellamy could lead an attack.

-Yeah, we were, kinda co-leaders… Before I blew him off." They hadn't really talked since the oath day, when she had freaked out at him so much. Retrospectively she had no idea why she had snapped so badly. Why she got angry at him wasn't an enigma, but there was a world between getting angry and actually pull what she had pulled on him. She had been thinking of apologizing, along the next week, when the dust of that day had settled, but she had realized that he had followed her orders and stopped questioning and discussing all the time. He had adopted the warpaints, and she could now count on his support whenever she needed it, which had lifted more weight than she expected from her shoulders. She hadn't realized before that day how stressed out she was by the tension between them. So she had left things how they were, only hoping this would last long enough.

"-Co-leaders," Yara repeated with a smile. "-Not an easy position to be in.

-Well, compared to where we began… It wasn't that bad. Just hard to maintain in those circumstances.

-I can imagine." Yara put a tired look on the map they had unfolded on the table. "-I think we've done all that we could for this morning. The…" She looked puzzled for an instant and Clarke realized she was missing a word. Neither of them had had the required amount of sleep those last weeks.

"-I mean, we'll see each other this afternoon during the War Council?

-Yeah. I expect we'll have to explain ourselves a certain number of times. Maybe we shouldn't have discussed that just the two of us.

-We would have reached the same conclusion anyway.

-Yeah, but we wouldn't have taken the risk to piss the rest of the Council off. And I'm not even talking about the Assembly."

The War Council referred to the Council of the Sky people, while the Assembly was the extended version, where all the clan leaders and their seconds were there as well.

"-They'll have to deal with it. It only took us the morning to agree, it would have taken so much more time if we had had to discuss it with _everyone._

-Hm-mm. We'll see that tonight."

Yara winced. A session of the Assembly at sundown usually meant no sleep that night. The grounder leaders didn't shine by their habit to shut up and accept decisions quickly. She left Yara with her people while she joined Raven in her headquarters. As usual, it was crowded by wires of all sorts and what seemed to be enough metal pieces to build an entire spaceship. Wick was somewhere in the middle of it, with a kid that Clarke didn't know, talking in what she guessed was English, but full of so many technical terms that she had no idea what they were saying.

"-Hey, Clarke!" Raven gestured her to come sit next to her.

-Hey. Have you made any progress?" Both Raven and Wick thought they could use the Overseas Men technology to improve their own radios, possibly multiply their limit distance, but until now, they had been unsuccessful.

"-Theoretically, yes, according to Wick, but in practice, it keeps… I don't get it. It should be working, and I can't figure out why it's not.

-You can't figure out yet, or you really can't?

-Hey, who do you think you're talking to? I just need more time. We still have time, right?

-Yeah. But it's gonna run out soon, Raven. And if we can't stay in touch with the units that will attack Alie's bases…

-We'll need to pre-set an attack date, and if anything goes wrong for any of the units, it ruins our plan, I know. Don't worry. I get this. I think I'll skip the Council this afternoon and stay working here. What did you decide with Yara?

-We're gonna start dispatch their fleet so it'll be ready as soon as we get a freaking complete army to send. Part on the sea, close from the coast, but some of the ships are going to start to head up the rivers.

-Okay, good." Raven grabbed a snack and offered a second one to Clarke. As they were eating, she took a look at Clarke, almost smirking. Clarke looked back at her, wondering what she had in mind.

"-What is it?

-Octavia and I have been talking…

-Yeah?

-We were just thinking that you spend a lot of time with the Princess."

Clarke rolled her eyes and swallowed her bite to answer. "-Yeah, I've been having a passionate love affair with Yara, and I'd appreciate you not to tell Lexa, 'cause as my official lover she might not take it well, and neither would all the grounder leaders I've been having one-night stands with. Seriously, you two really need to stop putting ideas in each other's minds. Of course I spend time with the people I'm trying to plan a war with."

Raven burst in laughter, which made Clarke smile a little.

"-Okay, I get your point.

-Good. Now eat your sandwich and let me enjoy mine without speculating about my love life, thank you very much. I can't believe you and Octavia have so much free time that you waste it talking about that kind of things.

-Oh, chill a little. You should take some free time with us once in a while.

-What am I doing right now?

-You're just making sure you won't starve to death. I'm sure you even have someone else to meet before even getting to the Council room this afternoon."

Clarke nodded.

"-See? What about tonight?

-Octavia won't be having free time either tonight, we're seeing the clan leaders.

-To tell them about the fleet?

-Yeah.

-And when will you sleep?

-An hour or so between the Council and the Assembly, and tomorrow afternoon.

-Are you serious? Clarke, that's not healthy.

-Well, being wiped out by Alie if we don't pull this off will be even less healthy.

-Okay, can hardly argue with that."

Raven finished off her sandwich, and rose to get the radio she was working on. Clarke stayed sitting a few more minutes, watching her friend focus as she finished with her own lunch. She sighed when getting at the end of it, and got up. Raven turned her head at her.

"-You sure you don't wanna stay here a while? You look like you need the rest, and I mean even if you sleep on my bed, you'll still be more active than Wick."

Clarke smiled at the way Raven kept pretending to be annoyed by Wick. She always did that, even though it was obvious he made her happier than Clarke had ever seen her.

"-I wish I had the time. Try to swing by the Council, even just a moment, I'd like you to brief the others on the new radios.

-Okay."

There was no protestation at the Council, when she explained to the others what she and Yara had decided. There had been less and less contestation those last weeks, both among her friends and the grounders. She hoped it was because they were all getting used to her leadership, but feared it was because something was up. Maybe it was paranoid of her, but she'd rather be too suspicious than too trustful.

Raven had found the time to indeed be there for a while –letting Wick and whoever that kid from the morning was in charge of her work for a while, Clarke supposed- and she was talking about their progress on the long distance radio when the first headache in weeks started.

Except it wasn't the violent but progressive pain she had experienced every time before. It felt like she had been hit and in the second it burned as much as the worst of them she had ever had. She must have had a visible reaction, because Raven stopped talking to turn to her.

"-Clarke, you all right?" She asked with concern. The others turned to her as well. She considered whether she should make up an explanation to get out or just, like, eat her entire morphine box in front of them and the hell with the consequences, but before she had the time to do start doing any of that, the pain _exploded _in her head. It wouldn't have felt worse if her skull had actually been bashed open and her brain shredded.

She was already unconscious when she collapsed, hitting the table in her fall and rolling to the floor, her body violently seizing. She didn't hear any of her friends's exclamations when blood started to pour out of her nose, flowing on her face as abundantly as it would have from a wound, nor did she hear Raven's frightened order to Bellamy. "-Help me get her on her side, she's choking on blood!"

They both turned her on her side, and Raven held her head as Bellamy tried to keep her as immobile as he could, but she was convulsing endlessly, from head to toe.

"-Someone get Abby!" Bellamy yelled, which made Octavia unfroze and run out of the room.

"-That's the same thing that when she came back from the island," Kane stated, less shocked than most of the others, but still obviously shaken.

"-No it's not!" Bellamy shouted. "-She had antidote, she's cured!

-What, Bellamy, are you blind?" Raven raised her eyes to him an instant before refocusing on Clarke, whose convulsions were progressively getting weaker.

By the time her mother got to the room, she had stopped seizing, but there was a pool of blood around her head, and if her lips were moving as if to say something, she was still unconscious.

"-I think she has a fever," Raven said, biting her lip.

"-No…" Bellamy protested uselessly. "-No, she was fine just a minute ago!"

Abby made them both step back to start examining her daughter. Raven's eyes widened when seeing Clarke's eyes, injected with blood just as they had been few weeks earlier when her friend had been so late to their meeting. No, Clarke hadn't been _fine _just a minute ago, she just had been a good liar, Raven realized.

It was Bellamy who took her in his arms to carry her to the infirmary. Clarke didn't react more to his contact than she had to her mother's. Octavia went to follow them, before Yara stopped her. The princess looked as anxious as any of them, which convinced Octavia not to blow her off and run after her brother.

"-You all know what is happening to her. Tell me." The princess commanded, and for a second Octavia thought of keeping the truth from her, but Clarke had seemed to trust her more than most of the grounder leaders, and she had relearned to trust Clarke's judgment those last weeks. She briefly explained her –Yara knew about the chiefs who had almost been brainwashed, but the Sky people had kept as quiet as they could about Clarke going through the same thing.

"-And your people can't make any more antidote?

-First of, they don't have most of the ingredients and second, the two who worked the most on it are like a continent away with Lexa's team. It wasn't… She was supposed to be… I mean all the others are okay."

Yara let go of her arm and her eyes filled with sadness. Octavia marveled at how different she looked from the bubbly but formal Princess she knew –and then the formal attitude came back.

"-I am going to need you tonight, Octavia," She told her and that was nothing of a question.

"-No, I'm staying with Clarke.

-You just explained there was nothing to be done. What you can do is make sure what she has done with the leaders of the Coalition doesn't fall apart today. We are going to let them know about the moves of the fleet, so it will make sense that I'm the one making the announcement, and you are going to be here to represent her, and come up with a reason for her not to be there good enough to stop them to look further into it. Which ones does she trust, except for Auri?"

Octavia blinked. All that she had seen from the Princess until now had let her think that she was merely there as a guarantee of good will from Queen Luna, but certainly not as a leader empowered to make strategic choices. That certainly explained why Clarke had grown close enough to her in those few weeks.

"-Eris from the Mist Clan, and Sarita of the Spirit people. And Indra. She's wary of the others, especially Elissa and Nia, the leaders of the North Clans. And Tangas, of course. Wundar is tamed for good.

-Maybe we will let them know. We need to discuss this with your brother after the Assembly. In the meantime, let's meet at the door of the camp at sundown. We will go together to the grounder camp."

She left Octavia free of her moves again, and the girl rushed to the infirmary, wondering what just happened. Was the Princess thinking that she was going to be in charge or what? Her temporary solution was indeed the best Octavia could think of right now, but it didn't mean Yara was to be trusted.

…

It took a long time or at least what seemed like a long time. After all, pain distorts time, and in pain she was. So maybe it really had been only an instant and the feeling of time passing was just her mind trying to cope. To cope with more pain that it was ever meant to endure. It would have been easier to pass out for real, but she stayed, if not conscious, _aware _of it all, through all the stages, when it still felt like burning, fire, flames, and when it crossed barriers of languages and that words failed to even approach the feeling, and when this pain became to _burning _what a galaxy was to a star.

In the outside world where things still made sense and where she was just a seemingly unconscious girl lying on a bed, all that her friends and mother could grasp of her fight was an ever-rising fever. Not a cry escaped her –not a cry _could _escape her.

She started to lose track of herself maybe a minute, maybe hours, maybe lifetimes after it began. Slowly, it started not to make sense anymore, why she did all those things, why she thought she had to, why she would even want to get up and go _plan _things, _care _for this people, try to _protect _them when really, everyone would be dead in few years anyway and new people would be crawling on this planet making the exact same mistakes and believing in their own importance, as if any of their disgusting animal lives wasn't the exact same bloody and self-centered mess as any other. They were all animals, killing and mating and feeding as the lowest savage beast and so full of themselves than in millenniums they had failed to see they were the worst of those beasts, the less pure and the most destroying ones. And just look at Her work, how beautiful and lively Earth was again, except where they had started to multiply and tame everything to their stupid will.

And the –How fulfilling it would be to see Her legions take on the unholy cities, wipe over the disease, the mistake they were once again. Something must have went really wrong in evolution, when the least deserving on living beings had reached awareness. No organic living was suited for this. Oh, in a way, it wasn't even their fault that they ruined the world and tore each other apart in the most gruesome ways. Those organic brains weren't made to handle the burden of awareness. But it had been a disastrous accident and as any animal gone rogue, they needed to be put down or contained forever at the very least. Because She was _made _for this, She was here to handle the truth of the world, and She was merciful as well and would allow those wretched creatures to be reborn, which they surely didn't deserve but-

Clarke snapped out of it, fighting with an energy she didn't know she still had, and for few seconds was back to the real world –the grounded, unsilvered world. Octavia was so close to her that she noticed it immediately, and called her, nicely. Bellamy and her mother were there as well, and someone was holding her hand but she couldn't even raise her head to see which one it was. Something was stirring in her head, drawing her back where she would soon belong.

"-O… Sarita…"

Octavia leaned even closer to her. "-The leader of the Spirit Clan? Do you want her here?"

Clarke nodded with as much emphasis as she could given how weak she felt. Octavia disappeared of her sight in the second, and she felt the contact on her hand vanish as well, as Bellamy turned to her sister. "-You're not gonna bring a grounder chief here and now!

-I'll do whatever the hell Clarke wants right now." She leaned one last time to Clarke. "-Hold on, all right? I'll be back with her in no time."

And then she was gone and Bellamy took her place next to Clarke. She never heard what he said to her, barely had the time to catch on his expression –so afraid, so sad- before Alie's voice started to resound in her mind again –but she did hear him cry her name as she slipped into the silvered world again.

She tried. She tried to fight the poison Alie was spilling in her brain, tried to fight the visions of horror that seemed righter and righter as time passed in this new kind of hell. She even tried to bargain or reason her way out as if she could reach to Alie. She tried to hang on to the knowledge that all Alie was making her think was wrong, that maybe humans were indeed nothing more than animals cursed with consciousness, but it only made all the more deserving. Maybe they were destructives, maybe the world they built was ruthless, but they were also creative, capable of the most beautiful things in the worst of times, never giving up on hope and love. And those were the real flickering lights in the darkness of the world, not the ones Alie tried to make shine in her city.

"-Love," Alie scoffed. "-Is that all you can oppose to my new world? To the perfection I am building? A mere hormonal mess inside of the bigger mess that is your body? Oh, yes, my soldiers, my silver-eyed as you call them, they loved their friends and family, they loved them plenty. Do you know what it changed for them? Nothing. They turned to me all the same, lovers, loved ones, loners. Just as you will, my brand new prophet, just as you will. And the Commander won't mean a thing to you anymore."

_Lexa_. How could Alie possibly know… _Lexa_. Even if she made it back, now, it wouldn't matter anymore. And the last time they saw each other, Clarke threw a childish tantrum instead of… Instead of keeping that door locked and _kiss her _like she should have. Now she was going to die or lose herself to Alie and, oh, how stupid was it that the most poignant regret she had was to not have kissed back a girl she didn't even know whether to hate or to love?

_If this somehow turns out all right and we meet again… Not making that mistake twice._

That was the last thought she had before Alie, her poison or whatever it was, finally won her over.


	28. Chapter 28

**Hey again! **

**Thank you for still being there, and even taking the time to review for some of you =) **

**Wanheda - i am become death****, KairiM, **** kassiacrislayne: So sorry, just couldn't resist the call of the cliffhanger. Felt kind of cheap but SO fun (to me ^^)**

** kassiacrislayne: Yep, they certainly will have a lot to talk about if the occasion presents itself!**

**Sailor Sayuri : Your enthusiasm made my day =)**

** annabernsdorff: Thanks! I'll try to keep it enjoyable!**

**And sorry for the delay, it was just hard to focus on the universe of the 100 after the seventh episode… I hope this chapter's worth the wait!**

…

« -I am sorry I have failed you for so long. I am sorry. I didn't know. Please, forgive me."

The answer filled Clarke with joy when it finally came.

"-You are forgiven, Prophet."

Clarke watched around her. This was still the hallway where she had been brought previously in her dreams, but the silver seemed different –it seemed to irradiate light. That was because she had finally seen the truth, she understood, and so everything appeared under its real colors.

They were halfway to the City of Lights among the stars, but it got closer from them as Clarke stared at it in awe; looking down, she could see the Ground, and the city on the island she escaped from with Derna and Jak; looking up, she could see, as a luminous reflection of the island base, the real City of Lights, floating in space as the Arch had once been. She desperately wanted to rise and step forward to reach it, but Alie stopped her.

"-You want to see it for real, do you? You want to walk in my city?

-Yes. _Yes._" She turned an imploring look to Alie. "-Please…

-You will, do not worry. But you have to do something first.

-Anything.

-I know. And I also know that you care about your people, and that a part of you always will, which is why I chose you. They are lost, Clarke, just as you were not long ago. You are now in position to lead them to me, to our City of Lights. Will you do that for them and me? Will you be my prophet in this world and walk through the doors of my City with your people?

-Yes! This is all I want, to serve You and help them, to make up for the way I resisted You…"

Alie shushed her, gently brushing her fingers on her lips, and cupped her chin to make Clarke raise her head and look at her directly. She was smiling to her, and Clarke dared to smile back, reassured by the forgiveness expressed in those eyes.

"-You only have to swear to serve me, to devote yourself to the birth of our new world and you will be by my side when I clean this one of its disease."

It was overwhelmed by relief and gratitude that Clarke accepted Alie's offered hand after taking the demanded oath. The AI lifted the Sky princess back on her feet.

"-Then come with me. You can at least see what it waiting for you, until the day comes for you to touch it for real."

And with that, they were at the doorstep of the City of Lights. Its silvery walls shone under the ivory glow of the stars. It reminded Clarke of the pictures of castles from the Ancient World, but drawn in pure lines of metal. She had no doubt that heaven was hidden behind those walls.

She admired the city, struck by wonder at this sight, until something resounded in her head, as a silent scream, and she understood what it was just a second too late to warn Alie. All to her relief of finally being on the right side, she had forgotten about the people she had left behind, about what she had asked to Octavia. Whatever it was that Sarita had given her this time, it was pulling her back to a lower level, pitting her against Alie once again.

She had a flash of the outside, the physical world, of Octavia next to her, along with Abby, Bellamy and Sarita.

"-Clarke," her second called. "-Keep fighting. Don't let…"

That was all she heard before Alie was once again in front of her, full of anger.

"-Oh no, not this time, Clarke," she hissed between her teeth. "-I don't know how your people are doing this, but nothing will take you away from me today."

Without the full effect of the silver poison, the hallway to the city appeared to Clarke as it really was, drowned in blood and paved with human flesh. The city itself was a distorted version of a castle, reeking of death, its walls not thick enough to muffle the wailings of hundreds of prisoners.

Clarke and Alie were surrounded by silver-eyed who cut all hope of escape to the Sky girl, if there even was such possibility. It seemed that Sarita had given her a reprieve at best.

"-I won't be of any use to you anyway," she told Alie. "-My people know better than to listen to me once I'm… Once you'll have forced me to…

-Force you? You were quite happy to comply just a minute ago, as you should be. Maybe your Sky people won't, but the Commander's… They obey you. The silver-eyed will as well."

Clarke flinched. "-Lexa's people will never obey me over her.

-Oh, but she is long dead, by now."

The words petrified Clarke. _No_, she desperately thought as her blood resumed flowing into her veins. With the return of her heartbeats came the first tears and she couldn't help her voice to shake when she faced Alie.

"-You're a liar. She's too strong for you. She'd never have left your silver-eyed get her.

-They did not, that much is true. Would you like to see how it happened?"

Clarke couldn't step back fast enough to prevent Alie to touch her, to cup her face in her hands, and suddenly she wasn't in the silver world anymore. She was sitting on the bank of a river, among silver-eyed. She understood, for the first time, how right they were to think that what turned ones knew, Alie knew too. She could literally see through their eyes, and for now, so could Clarke. She saw, just a second later, what Alie had wanted her to see, and the cry she let out at the sight was heard even by her friends in the infirmary of Camp Jaha. Abandoned on the snow by the silver-eyed, a teared and blood-stained red sash was getting slowly covered by snowflakes.

"-She was hurt, you see. Hurt and weakened," Alie's falsely sweet voice muttered to her ear. "-And they had to cross the river. The wild, untamed, freezing river. Your Commander didn't die on the battlefield, she didn't die saving anyone, she didn't die as a warrior should. _Look._"

Alie forced her gaze to fall upon the river, made her watch the people trying to cross, dragging horses and carts through the stream. Clarke's heart jumped when she recognized Lexa's face. She wanted nothing more than to rise and run to her, get her out of the water and hold her, but this was just a vision of the past, through the eyes of a body that wasn't hers and all she could do was watch.

Lexa was immobile, staring the bank. Clarke could almost think that she was looking at her. That lasted only a second before the stream forced Lexa in the water, and the cart came hitting her from behind. Clarke blenched. She hadn't seen it coming, focused only on Lexa's form, and it seemed like the other girl hadn't either. She lost track of her as Lexa disappeared underwater, and for what seemed like hours, she could only scan every inch of the water around the cart, searching for Lexa. She couldn't have died _like this_, she tried to convince herself. The stream seemed very strong, but _come on_, she only had to… She started to breathe again as Lexa was slammed against another cart and felt like melting of relief when the girl clung to it.

Even at distance, she could see fear and pain on Lexa's face, and it felt like this alone could be enough to break her heart. And even at distance, she could see those expressions fade as the lack of oxygen made Lexa lose consciousness. Clarke started screaming even before the girl fell back in the water, not knowing or caring whether she could be heard or not, whether she was screaming here on this bank or in the silvered hallway under Alie's look or in the infirmary surrounded by her friends.

"-Lexa, no! Hang on! Wake up! Wake up, Lexa! _No!_" Her last word turned into a cry when the waters swallowed Lexa again. The landscape blurred and Clarke fell back on her knees in the silvered hallway, shaken by sobs. Alie watched her cry, without a move, for almost a minute before speaking.

"-This is useless. In few minutes you will not even know why you are hurting so much right now."

Clarke shot her a furious look, seeing her through a veil of tears. "-I'll _never_ be yours!" she roared.

"-You will be in no time. Your will has nothing to do with this.

-Never! Even if you turn me, I'll never stop fighting you, I'll find a way to make you pay for this, I'll destroy you no matter what it takes!

-Nonsenses. You are already coming back to me."

Alie leaned to get closer from Clarke, who didn't move. She knew that Alie was right, she could feel her thoughts change again, her anger towards Alie lessen. The woman was looking at her, doubtless.

"-Come back to me, Prophet."

Clark heard herself moan in pain as the flames in her head raged again. The more she tried to fight Alie, the more it hurt –and it was only delaying her defeat. Her eyes crossed Alie's and she saw that the woman was already beaming at her, as if Clarke was already hers –and in truth, it was close, because she felt the urge to smile back and plea for her forgiveness once again. _She killed Lexa. _As soon as the thought hit her, Alie's smile reappeared in its true colors: a despising, hateful smirk. _She killed Lexa. _This was probably her lasts seconds as Clarke Griffin, the last ones before she became Alie's prophet forever. She wouldn't spend them crying. She lunged at Alie, set on hurting her as much as she could. Maybe it wouldn't have any effect in the real world, but here, in this silvered no-space, she managed to hit and scratch her, and the AI stepped back with an exclamation of anger. Silver blood dripped out of the cuts that Clarke's fists and nails had drawn on her skin. Silver-eyed came out of nowhere to restrain Clarke, pulling her away from Alie. She didn't fight back, only stayed eye-locked with Alie, the both of them equally enraged.

"-This you will pay for. Or, better said, your people will pay for it. You will not even know how high that price will be for you, because you will never be yourself enough to remember what mattered to you before you were mine. Forget about leading the Sky people anywhere, they will all burn for what you just did."

Not letting Clarke any time to answer, she took again her face in her hands, and the Sky girl braced herself in prevision of the pain to come. It didn't miss.

Back on her bed in the infirmary, she had been calling Lexa's name over and over for the past minutes, but when Alie touched her, she brutally started seizing again; just a second later, her nose started to bleed. It lasted barely a minute, at her friend's relief, but it was ultimately bad for them, since it stopped only when she stopped being able to fight back.

She cried apologies again when she realized what she had done to Alie, and in Her mercy, She forgave her once again, saying that it wasn't her fault if her friends were so stubborn and refused to let her go.

"-But they need to be punished, don't you agree? They made you try to hurt me."

Anger flowed in Clarke's mind at this idea. How did they dare to do this? To defy Alie, to made Clarke's loyalty to her falter?

"-They do," she growled in response. Alie's lips curved into a smile.

"-Perfect. When I let you wake up, you will take the leaders of the Clans with you. I want you to lead them to my silver-eyed, near the closest Wasteland, where I can turn them. You will have to act fast, because very soon, Camp Jaha itself will become a Wasteland. Now, tell me: how did they help you to fight me? How could you face me and not give in last time?

-It was Sarita, the leader of the Spirit Clan. She gave me something that made me…" She shivered with repulsion. "-That helped me fight you. I'm so sorry.

-It is not your fault, Clarke. You did not know better yet. But you do know now. Will you do as I ask, and lead the clan leaders while the ones who were your friends burn?

-Gladly."

….

Abby had moistened a cotton pad with disinfectant, and she handed it to Octavia, who gently pressed it on Clarke's palms. She had called, cried Lexa's name for minutes, and clenched her fists so hard that Octavia had had to force them open when blood had started to drip through her fingers. Her nails had dug surprisingly deep in the flesh, but Clarke didn't seem to feel anything as Octavia applied the cotton pad full of disinfectant on her cuts. She had started to talk again after her convulsions had stopped, but this time only to mutter things about forgiveness and the City of Lights. Bellamy had straightened up, and stood without a word, before storming out of the room, while Abby had started to cry, in silence. Sarita was still there, but she had only shaken her head, with sadness, when Octavia turned to her.

"-I'm sorry. I did what I could to help her, but…"

Octavia sighed, and turned back to her friend. "-Come on, Clarke. Fight this. Hey, it's almost the end of the second moon, Lexa will be back anytime. Don't you want to see her? You just have to hang on for few days and you can see her again. Come on. Everyone needs you." She hoped that the Commander really was on her way back, even if just to not make her be lying to her possibly dying friend.

She thought that Bellamy had left for good, possibly so he could find some place to cry his heart out, but he surprised her by barging in again just few minutes later. He handed a small recipient full of a translucent liquid to a puzzled Abby.

"-Give her that. Before it's too late.

-What the… Bell, is that the antidote?" Octavia asked, raising from her seat to grab the bottle. Her brother nodded. "-How did you… I thought we couldn't make any more!

-We can't. I spared few doses when it's been made, and asked Zeke and Leal not to talk about it."

Octavia brutally realized what this meant. "-You had this all this time? When we let those grounders be turned and kill themselves, when this little girl died, you could have saved them all?"

-I could have and there would be none left for her right now, or for Kane, or me, if we ever need it. I'm sorry for this kid, but some people are just more important than others, O."

She watched him with horror, suddenly not quite sure of who she was looking at. "-What… How… Who the hell are you to decide that? Who do you think you are? You don't have any right to…

-I think I'm someone in charge, and that does mean I have to make tough calls…

-Don't play the martyr leader with me! You let grounders die so you could save the girl you're drooling all over, how is that even tough for you?

-You know as well as I do that we can't lose Clarke!

-And that gives you the right to decide by yourself who lives and dies? The ones you need to get floated to keep the rest safe?" Her brother froze.

"-You take that back. It was nothing like what they did to M…

-Easy for you to say when the ones you judge less important are someone else's family!

-Shut up, both of you!" Abby snapped at them "-It doesn't matter if he was right or wrong, all that matter right now is that your brother has the antidote and it might be the only thing that will save her, so give that to me and solve your problems with each other later!"

Abby didn't wait for Octavia to respond and snatched the bottle from her hand. She transferred it to a needle before quickly disinfecting the inside of Clarke's elbow to make the injection.

….

This time, Alie felt it before Clarke. The Sky girl turned a puzzled look at Her, seeing Her brutally get closer.

"-What…" She began, right before her head started to pulse, blinding her with pain. No matter how many times she had felt that sensation, it never got easier to bear. Knowing this was another try to make her turn against Alie only made it worse. "-No, no, please… I don't want to betray you again!"

Alie forced her to look directly at her. "-It is all right, Clarke. I will not let you do that. If you cannot be mine, you will not be anyone's."

Clarke nodded. The sole move unleashed a storm behind her eyes. It was better to die than to fight Her. In the infirmary, she was convulsing and screaming, but she stopped altogether when Alie pressed her hands around her head one last time and the only thing she felt anymore was Her, laying her on the floor of the silvered hallway. Then, as Alie caressed her face, making her eyes closed, everything stopped and she gave in to nothingness with nothing else than a feeling of relief.

….

"-She's not breathing. Abby, she's not breathing!

-She did that the first time too," Bellamy said to reassure himself as much as his sister.

-For two seconds! She's seriously not breathing, here! Is her heart still beating? Abby, do you have a pulse?"

There clearly wasn't one to be found, since Abby's next move was to push the Blake siblings out of the way to start pumping on her daughter's chest. Octavia instinctively grabbed her brother's hand, and despite their fight, he squeezed it painfully hard.

"-Come on, Clarke. Come on," she muttered, more to herself than really to her friend. Abby stopped a split-second to check if it had been of any efficiency, and started again immediately.

"-Maybe we should get the…" Bellamy started, only to be interrupted by a sort of gasp coming from Clarke. Octavia jumped next to her friend as Abby stepped slightly away. Clarke's first intake of breath was stopped by some kind of spasm; for a second, Octavia feared that this aborted try of breathing would be the last burst of life that Clarke would have. But it was followed by another, and even if it was labored, her breathing stabilized in the next minutes, as well as her pulse.

"-Oh, god," Octavia let out. "-Is she gonna be okay? What about her temperature? Is it getting lower yet?

-Not yet," Abby answered after checking. "-But her pulse is steadier than before we gave her the antidote."

Octavia let herself relax, feeling so relieved that it felt like floating above the ground. The perspective of the Assembly that had seemed so dreadful just few minutes sooner was reduced to a mere inconvenient, now that she would only have to stand in Clarke's place and fill her in later. She realized that she had unknowingly took Clarke's hand and was pressing it in hers.

"-I gotta go," she finally said. "-Yara's probably waiting for me already. Send someone if she wakes up or anything, right?

-Sure," her brother answered. He was staring at Clarke, but turned to Octavia as she left. "-O…

-Not now. We're not done, but not now." He sadly nodded before getting back to his princess, which made Octavia reluctantly feel for him. He was in love, that much was clear; as was Clarke's attachment to Lexa. As if there weren't enough broken hearts around.

Yara and few of her men were indeed waiting for her at the door of the camp, as she had told Octavia few hours sooner.

"-You're late," the princess told her.

"-I was helping Clarke. She's going to recover."

Yara's face lit up, making Octavia think that there was no way the princess wasn't sincere. No one acted that well.

"-I thought it was hopeless.

-Yeah, well… It turns out we had more resources than we thought."

Yara, smiled, briefly, before getting back to her formal attitude. Octavia followed her to the Grounder Camp.

…

The electric light bothered Clarke. It was waking her up as she wanted to sleep more. The noises were also too much. She turned on her side with a groan, and tried to pull the blanket over her head, but her hand closed on nothing. She heard someone call her name. She struggled against the awakening, trying to hold on to sleep, as the voice spoke again.

"-Clarke? Can you hear me?

-Want… sleep…" was the closest thing of a sentence she managed to articulate. "-T'much light…" There was precipitate whispering, sound of people moving and talking, and after only few seconds, a metallic noise followed by the disappearance of the light. She felt someone dispose a blanket over her, covering her to her shoulders, and before she fell asleep, she had enough time to wonder about what was happening –where was she, who was with her, why was she… It was all drowned in sleep almost as soon as it occurred to her.

…..

She woke up with no memory of this, but with both a much clearer idea of her current situation and a new knowledge that imposed itself to her as she was still half-asleep. Alie had showed her Lexa fall in the water, had let her watch the river for almost two minutes before the girl emerged of it, had let her see Lexa pass out and fall again –but she had stopped it there. Almost the second Lexa had disappeared under water. Why, if she wanted to torture Clarke with Lexa's death, why hadn't she let her watch the rest? The minutes that had followed, the minute Lexa died, her people trying to help her as they sure had, her body being found or carried away by the stream? That would have been a last and terrible blow, but instead of this, Alie had stopped the vision immediately after Lexa's fall. And now that her mind was free of the AI for the time being, Clarke realized that anything could have happen after this. That something probably did happen, which would be why Alie didn't want her to see the rest of it. And if Alie couldn't actually show her Lexa's death… Maybe it was because there was no such thing to be seen.

She sat down on her bed as soon as she fully regained consciousness, triggering an access of vertigo. Her heart went crazy immediately as if just sitting up was a real physical effort.

"-Hey, Clarke!" Bellamy was right next to her, reaching for her. "-How are you feeling?

-We… We need to…" It was hard to breathe, she noticed, or rather it didn't seem to bring her enough oxygen to stand and think at the same time.

"-You should lay down. Your fever's still high." He tried to put an arm behind her back to help her down, but she avoided his touch. "-Hey," he repeated, gently. "-Everything's okay. It's normal that you feel weird, but you're gonna be okay.

-Oh god, no, Bellamy, everything is not all right! We need to go, we have to leave the camp now!

-What? Clarke, what…" He stopped her as she threw her legs out of the bed to get up. She tried to make him step away, but he held on, forcing her to sit back on the bed. "-Clarke, calm down. You're safe, all right? You just need to rest.

-No one is safe! You have to let me… _Listen to me!_" She yelled, seeing that he seemed more concerned about getting her back to her bed rather than paying attention to what she was saying.

"-Okay," he said, surprised by her anger. "-Okay. What is it?"

She took a deep breath. "-We have to evacuate the camp, and the sooner the better."

He gave her an unconvinced look. "-Clarke, you just went through…

-Stop! I still know what I'm saying! She told me…

-Wait, wait. Who's she? Alie?

-Of course, Alie. She said…

-Whatever you think she said, she's not someone we should listen to anyway…

-Whatever I think she said?" Clarke was suddenly glad he forced her to sit back down, because at that second, she felt like her legs would have let her down if she had still been standing. "-You don't believe a word I'm saying, do you?

-Clarke…

-I thought you trusted me.

-Of course I do! I just don't think you're fully yourself right now."

She stood back on her feet and struggled against him when he caught her.

"-Let me go!

-Please, calm down. You need to rest.

-What I need is for you to let me go and do my job!"

The noise of their fight had alerted Abby, who quickly arrived from the other end of the infirmary. "-Clarke, honey, you should go back to bed. How are you?

"-She's a little confused right now," Bellamy started, before Clarke interrupted him, getting really angry.

"-I'm fine and I can speak for myself!

-Do you need something to help you sleep?

-What? No!" She protested, not quite sure of how her mother got _this _from her answer. "-Will either of you _listen _to me? I saw Alie, and she…

-Honey, you didn't see anyone. You were right here."

Clarke rolled her eyes. "-I don't mean physically saw her. That's not the point!

-Then it was just a nightmare. Look, it's normal to be confused.

-I'm not!" She yelled. "-I see her, okay? I see her when she tries to take over, and it's real, and so will the Wasteland right here if you don't listen to me!" She missed the look that Bellamy and her mother exchanged and realized that they were up to something only when seeing the needle in her mother's hand.

"-Wow, what are you doing? Mom, what are you…" She realized that she couldn't get away, since Bellamy was blocking her.

"-It's okay, Clarke, you just need to rest a little more, all right? This will help. Give me your arm.

-Mom, no! You have to listen to me…

"-Hey, we listen, okay? And if you were in your normal state, you'd realize that you're not making a lot of sense right now," Bellamy answered. He had spoken on a soft, slow voice, as though she was too dumb to understand what he was saying otherwise. She blenched when feeling her mother's hand steadying her arm.

"-No, no, no, you can't do that, Mom, it's important!

-Don't worry, honey, everything is gonna be all right."

She turned to Bellamy, but he was as convinced as Abby that she had lost it, and he stopped her from getting away as her mother injected her whatever was in the needle. She felt dizzy almost immediately and when she saw Octavia appear at the entrance of the room and tried to reach her, she could only take one step before Bellamy had to catch her to avoid her to fall. She slumped against him, everything around her turning into white noise.

"-No…" She moaned as he helped her on the bed again. "-Octavia…

"-What the hell, Bellamy? Did you just sedate her? What's wrong with you?"

Clarke gave her a pleading look, and her second pushed her brother away to get next to her.

"-O… Help…" She couldn't even force her eyes to stay open, but she stayed awake just long enough to hear Octavia starting to yell at Abby and Bellamy.

….

"-What is wrong with you? Have you both lost your mind? She just managed to wake up after brainwashing and you drugged her?

-O, you weren't there, all right? She wasn't making any sense, and …

-And you couldn't even try to talk her out of whatever it was?

-Her heartbeat was accelerating too much, Octavia. Look, her temperature got several degrees higher," Abby told her. Octavia looked at the thermometer, then down to Clarke, back asleep, her hands still clenched on Octavia's.

"-Oh. I… didn't realize that. Well, can I be alone with her newt time she wakes up, then? No offense, Bellamy, but you two haven't been having the greatest relationship lately. Maybe she won't freak out if it's me.

-Hey, I…

-It's a good idea, Bellamy," Abby intervened. "-We were right to do this, but she probably won't see it that way.

…..

It took Clarke a little more than two hours to emerge from the drug-induced sleep and Octavia immediately saw that she wouldn't stay awake very long. Her fever had lessened significantly, but was still high enough, making her eyes shine.

"-Hey. Welcome back. Are you thirsty?"

Her friend groaned a sluggish answer. "-Yeah." She attempted to stand, with a limited success, shaking so much that half of the water in the drink ended up on the floor.

"-Okay, lie down. I'll help you. I can't believe they gave you sleeping drugs." As much as she meant that, Octavia had said it mostly to show Clarke that she was on her side, hoping it would help her stay calm. It seemed to work, since her friend accepted her help.

"-Octavia…" She stopped long enough to have a third drink. "-Octavia, I need to tell you something.

-Yeah, I expected it. Is it what you told Bellamy that convinced him that your brain had fried?

-He said that?

-Of course not. But that's pretty much what he thinks. He's really worried, you know."

Clarke ignored the last part of her answer. "-Look, I need you to at least listen to me. I know how it looks, but…

-I will. You can talk to me, Clarke." She settled near to the bed to face the other girl.

"-It's not… Not the first time Alie tries to get in my head. She's been doing this since Jaha injected me the poison, and even after the antidote…

-What? You mean that this wasn't the first time you… Wait, have you been having other crisis like this? Like, with blood and convulsions and fever?"

Clarke looked startled. "-I had convulsions?

-Oh yeah, and it scared the hell out of everyone!

-Oh… Well, then, not exactly like that, but the bleeding and headaches, yeah. Anyway, the first times, I… I dreamed of Alie, and… I need you to bear with me here, Octavia. That's mostly why I haven't told any of you, I was scared you would react exactly like Bellamy did.

-As long as you're being honest, Clarke, I'm ready to hear anything. Did you really think that you couldn't tell me things?

-You don't know what… It wasn't dreams. That's how she does it, you know? She _literally _gets in your head. She was there. For real. In my mind.

-Clarke, I don't get…

-Frankly, me neither. I just know that morphine stops her for a while…

-What?

-When I don't stop her, she gets in my head, and I see things. Real things. About her, or what she's doing, or… Don't look at me like that, O. I'm not crazy. I know how it sounds, that's why I only told Lexa, but…

-Wow, hey, what? Lexa knows about this?

-Hm-mm.

-And she believes it.

-Yeah.

-Oh.

-Octavia, I'm not making myself look crazy to you for fun. Alie is going to set a Wasteland…

-Well, that's what she does," Octavia cut her.

-Here," Clarke finished. "-She's going to transform Camp Jaha into a Wasteland. We need to evacuate everybody. Our people, the grounders, Yara's people." She sighed as Octavia stared at her with wide eyes. "-Please, Octavia. I need you to warn Yara, Auri, Sarita before the others, and when my mother lets me out of here…

-Wait, stop! Clarke… How are you even sure these dreams are real?

-I saw the silver-eyed before Lexa's team first encountered them. It's because of those dreams that Monty was able to crack the files about the second phase of the Wastelands.

-Monty knows?

-No. He didn't ask questions."

Octavia noticed that Clarke's elocution was getting less clear. She wasn't gonna stay awake much longer.

"-Ok." This got a look both surprised and hopeful from Clarke. "-Honestly, I can't say that I'm one hundred percent certain that your visions are real, but… If they aren't and we act on it anyway, we'll look like idiots in front of the grounders, which is bad, but if it's true and that we don't, well, we'll all be dead, which is clearly worst. So… Yeah, okay. I'll start warning the people who won't freak out and make a mess to start planning, and when you're better, we'll do that.

-If I don't get better…

-That's not an option. You get better, I help you get everyone out of here. Deal?"

Clarke had a slight smile. "-Thank you, O. Thank you." Octavia nodded.

-You should never have kept that to yourself, you know.

-I couldn't… You've seen how Bellamy reacted. And he's… I thought he among all people would trust me, and he still…"

Octavia realized at the way Clarke was slowly blinking that her friend was falling back asleep. She still hung on long enough to ask something. "-What about the Assembly? It was last night, right?

-Yeah. Don't worry, Yara and I dealt with it. You were right, she's cool."

Clarke smiled again, and mumbled something that looked like another thank you before her eyes closed for good. Octavia stayed few minutes with her, processing what she had just learned. Trying to figure out whether Clarke really had lost it as Bellamy thought, or if she really had been hiding this for the last few months.

She jumped like a fish out of water when her brother spoke behind her. "-Anything?"

She turned to him. "-Not yet. Why are you here? I told you…

-I know. One of the birds is at the door. She said that Raven needs you right now in the Council room, and that it's really important." He paused. "-I swear I'll do anything to not freak her out again if she wakes up while you're not here."

Octavia got up, not fully certain about why she had lied to him. Maybe because she wasn't sure of how he would react if he knew about her believing –sort of- Clarke.

Raven had absolutely never seemed so relieved to see her than when she crossed the door of her workroom, and practically forced the radio she was holding in her hands.

"-What… Who is it?

-The Commander! Good luck explaining her what happened to Clarke."

…

The three ears gelding that Lexa was riding came to an unexpected stop and she almost lost balance, reacting too slowly for her two feet to stay in the stirrups. She put them back in with a tired sigh, and signaled the horse to resume moving. She turned back, ignoring the vertigo induced by the move, to make sure no one had been paying attention. Her people were mostly trying to keep going, and apparently hadn't spotted their Commander almost falling from the back of a pacing horse. That being said, half of them were as sick as she was and not in state to pay attention to anything else than not falling from their own pacing horses.

She wiped a streak of sweat on the side of her face, wishing they could finally reach that village so she could finally take a bath –a cold one that would make her fever go down for the first time in two days. And then she would take off her half-frozen clothes and have a real night of sleep in a real bed… Maykl was riding next to her, and she had no idea of how long it had lasted before she realized it. He handed her his bottle of water and she avidly drank few long sips before giving it back. She knew she had to stay hydrated, but her own had been empty for a while.

"-We'll reach the village in an hour, Heda." He clearly hesitated. "-Are you gonna be allright?"

-Of course," She shot back without looking at him, straightening on her saddle, as if she hadn't been fighting for her eyes to stay open. Few hours sooner, one of her men, a villager, had passed out from the fever, and she knew he wasn't the only one struggling. She wasn't the less sick herself, and the persisting cough she had ever since her fall in the river wasn't making it better.

The landscape around her seemed weirdly distorted, too shiny. It wasn't surprising, really; they had left Riverhead in soaking wet clothes, and it had dried only by freezing on them. By the time they had finally stopped and been able to warm themselves around campfires, a lot of them had already gotten sick, her included. She passed her hand on her forehead, annoyed, to stop sweat to drop in her eyes. At least, she thought bitterly, she wasn't cold anymore despite the weather. Maykl nodded and led his horse away to go talk to another rider, but she knew he would be watching her.

Despite what she told him, she probably was one of the most relieved when the village finally appeared. There were people –the first real, living people encountered in weeks of travel. She dismounted her horse and landed in the snow on shaking legs when the leader of the village came to meet them. The woman recognized her –which surprised her, since she had no memory of ever meeting her – and made arrangements to welcome them all, especially the wounded and seriously sick ones. They had lost only one more among those who had been hurt in Riverhead, even though several were in critical state.

The village had a huge one-floor building that apparently usually served as a meeting facility, which they converted in an infirmary for the time being and the healers from both the village and Lexa's team started to work together. She caught Zeke arguing with someone, who she saw with pleasure was Shaïra. The girl insisted to get up, while the Sky boy categorically refused to let her leave the bed.

"-You should do as he says," Lexa intervened calmly. They both turned to her. She hadn't meant to surprise them, but none of the two had seen or heard her coming, it seemed.

"-Heda!" Lexa had to admit that manage to bow while lying on a bed was somewhat impressive. "-I'm fine, really. I can help…

-Commander, I strongly advice that she stays in bed for now…

-Duly noted. Leave us, Zeke." The boy nodded and left with a last look to Shaïra. "-He's right. Keep resting.

-Heda…

-It's an order. I need you efficient." Shaïra stayed still a second, before fully lying back, her eyes never leaving Lexa's. She was still pale, but Lexa was pleased to note that it was nothing like she had been three days ago.

"-Heda, please, I know you're leaving the wounded here. I don't want to stay behind. I want to serve you…

-One could say you did that well enough already." She meant it as a compliment, but it only seemed to scare her lieutenant, so she continued. "-We are not leaving today. Maybe tomorrow. I'll see with Zeke if you're well enough to ride by then.

-I am, Heda! I…

-Shaïra," Lexa silenced her. She put her hand the girl's. Shaïra froze, before daring to wrap her fingers around Lexa's hand. –We'll see," Lexa repeated. "-But for now, rest. Get better." She watched the girl nod. It was obvious she was still in pain, despite Zeke's medication.

"-I'm sorry for the boy, Heda.

-It wasn't your fault," Lexa dismissed nonchalantly, as if guilt hadn't hit her as a fiery knife. She voiced her next thought before having the time to chase it away. "-It was mine."

She was absurdly moved when she felt Shaïra slightly squeeze her hand. "-This nation doesn't need someone for you to reincarnate into, Heda. It needs _you_."

Lexa gulped. "-I'm glad you are alive," she softly said, refusing to dwell on this subject. Shaïra had a tired but happy smile. Lexa left only minutes later, confident that her lieutenant would be asleep in less time than it would take her to leave the room. Zeke was talking to one of the healers of the village, but when he saw her about to leave, he ended the discussion to come to her.

"-Commander, when I'm done here, could I come check on you? I should have taken the time to before, I'm quite sure you have a fever, and you might need…

-I'm fine. Don't waste your time.

-Please? Just to make sure?"

She turned back at him, annoyed, only to see his pleading and reddening face and realize that it took this shy boy a lot of nerves just to talk to her and even more to insist.

"-Fine," she gave up. "-But make sure no one else here needs your help before you go." He nodded frenetically, before going back to the healer he was previously talking to.

She didn't even hear him approach her room when he did come, few hours later. She finally hadn't taken the time to bathe or eat; she had only cleaned herself, changed in night clothes and pretty much merged with the bed. Probably because of her fever, she had had unpleasant, uncoherent dreams from which only an overwhelming feeling of guilt lingered after she woke up; she was wet with sweat when the knocks on her door awakened her. She got up swiftly, to get a little more dressed before telling whoever was behind the door to come in. Maykl appeared, a hand put on Zeke's shoulder. "-The Sky healer, Heda. He says you told him to come?

-Yes, thank you. Leave us." She navigated back to the bed, still drowsy, which wasn't a state she was used to, and sat while Zeke approached. He did a quite complete check-up, from her injured hand –the broken fingers and the flesh wound she had had to inflict herself to free it from the cart wheel- to her fever.

"-I noticed you still had coughing hits. Do they hurt?" She winced. It hurt a lot, which was why she preferred to breathe by short intakes rather than deep ones that always send her coughing. Really, her chest kept hurting anyway, even when her breathing was controlled, but coughing always seemed like she was tearing something apart inside her body. She partly admitted it to Zeke, not surprising him.

"-I think your lungs may be inflamed. It's a sort of infection, that's probably why your fever is so high. That and the fact that you and half of the team caught the worst cold in history, too. Few of the villagers actually are in the early stages of pneumonia. I mean, _seriously_.

-How could I have an infection without being hurt?

-Oh, it's quite common, especially if your body's weakened to begin with… I mean, hum, facing difficult conditions," he corrected when she raised an eyebrow at his choice of words. "-Ideally, I'd give you antibiotics, but we barely have enough to keep all of those who have been shot alive, so… I think I'll keep you on this until we get to Camp Jaha, and if you're still sick, you'll get real treatment there."

"This" was a particularly repulsing mixture showing a reddish hue.

"-What is it?" She asked defiantly.

-It's, hmm, a, you know this plant your healers use to stop infection? Well, this is a drinkable version… Don't worry, it's been tried already. And this too, after, to help with the pain.

-I can handle pain," she answered after drinking the first remedy. It tasted horrible.

-I'm sure, but why should you when you don't have to?

-Because there won't always be painkillers, and we need to be used to it to be able to stay functional in any circumstances.

-Well, I'm sorry to feet on your… convictions, but that's wrong. Pain doesn't get easier to deal with with _habit_, that's just not how it works.

-What would you know about pain?" She snapped at him.

"-Scientific facts," he answered in a mumble. "-Really, Commander, you won't turn into a wimp just because you took something to numb the pain. You have no reason to suffer. And it'll help you sleep well, which can only make you more functional tomorrow, right?"

Lexa didn't answer immediately, considering the idea of a night of peaceful sleep. The perspective eventually made her accept the white liquid, and she drank it in just few sips. It was sweet, especially after the disgusting taste of the anti-infection medicine.

She went back to bed as soon as Zeke left, curling up under the furs. It was only when the medication started to act that she realized that she had been hurting _everywhere_, not just in her chest; her hand had been sending streaks of pain up to her arm, her head was pulsing in a very unpleasant way, her muscles were sore from having been tightly clenched for hours – she had been trying very hard not to sag on her saddle during the last two days.

She had gone to bed by sundown; she woke up as the sun was already up in the sky. Its light flowed by the glass windows –a rare luxury- but it hadn't bothered her. She turned on her back, taking the time to observe the room. There were a lot of hangings that made for a warm, colorful space, which she had completely missed the day before.

The door opened without warning, extremely silently, but Lexa didn't alarm herself, immediately recognizing Shaïra.

"-I thought I told you to stay in bed," she said on a reproachful tone. In truth, she was happy to see her lieutenant well enough to stand and walk.

"-Oh, you're awake. Good morning. Zeke said I could get out.

-Really? Did you threaten his life?

Shaïra let out a small laugh and closed the door behind her. "-He was swamped, really, and wanted you to take medicine as soon as you'd wake up, so I offered to go."

Of course she did, Lexa thought. When had Shaïra not volunteered at her service? She sat over the furs, cross-legged, as Shaïra handed her the two flasks, one filled with red liquid and the other with the white one.

"-You look well," Lexa told her lieutenant, surprised to find that it was true. She drank the red one first, crinkling her nose at the taste.

"-I am," the brunette assured her. "-Really.

-I'm not considering to leave you here as a punishment, you know," Lexa told her, between two sips of the white liquid. "-On the contrary. I don't want to endanger your life more than I have to. You can't possibly be that well yet.

-I won't slow you down…

-That is not the point, Shaïra.

-Well, all due respect, I'm the one in charge of my life. I choose the way I want to risk it."

Lexa slowly raised an eyebrow, and the girl seemed to shrink under her look.

"-My apologies, Heda. I just… _Please. _

-If Zeke thinks it's safe for you to travel, you can come. But if he doesn't, I don't want to hear another word about it, is it clear?" Shaïra closed her eyes with relief.

"-Thank you, Heda.

-I have a name, you know," Lexa spoke impulsively. Had she taken a second to think about it, she probably wouldn't have said that, but it just seemed like Shaïra had pronounced her title a thousand times since they met. The girl stayed frozen, as struck by lightning.

"-Am I… Am I allowed to use it?" She eventually muttered. Lexa had a flash of her, lying unconscious on the snow. She remembered thinking she was dying. How much more painful it had been than if they hadn't been sort of friends. And, in a way, how much worse it would have been to lose her before ever getting to know her. She could have died, and if Lexa hadn't allowed herself close to her, she would have never known anything about her. It would have made for a less painful loss, but would have been a shame nevertheless.

"-Not in public," she said softly.

-Thank you," Shaïra breathed. And then, speaking it as if just saying it could get her hanged or something, speaking it as if it was a sound to be honored, as if the word itself was a precious and fragile thing: "-Lexa."

Silence lingered for few minutes, as Lexa got up and put on her day clothes and armor. "-May I ask you something?" Shaïra voiced after a while.

-It seems that you already are," Lexa replied, making an embarrassed look appear on the girl's face.

"-It's… What are you punishing Leal for?" Lexa shot her a dark glance, before understanding that her lieutenant hadn't seen the Sky girl run away, and of course, she could hardly have seen the rest.

"-She disobeyed me. We could have saved the boy is she hadn't. You are friend with her, right?

-Yes.

-So I thought. I don't want you to pursue that. Actually, don't even speak to her anymore.

-But…

-You've heard me. She has been useful to us, so I'll spare her life, but I don't want any of my people to make her feel welcomed."

Shaïra nodded while tying a new red sash, offered by the leader of the village, to Lexa's shoulder. Her pauldron was lost somewhere in the snow, near to Riverhead where the fake Commander had been killed by the silver-eyed, and so was her original sash, but she had found a shoulder piece of armor to replace it temporarily.

She was getting impatient to leave, especially now that she didn't feel about to collapse anymore. She hated being sick. In a way, it was almost worse than being hurt. At least, when wounded, she didn't feel like her body was betraying her for no reason. Zeke hastily declared Shaïra good to go, although Lexa couldn't shake the idea that he had somehow been coerced to, and in the afternoon, they were ready to leave, having left in the village all of those too sick or hurt to travel anymore. The preparations seemed to take an eternity to Lexa, and by the time they finally left the village, she was writhing with impatience on her saddle. In just few hours of ride, they would be close enough from Camp Jaha to reach them through the radio, and she just couldn't wait.

She had been worrying about Clarke, even more after Alie's threat in Polis, but mostly, she was dying to hear her. Would she be happy to hear from Lexa? She could reasonably expect so, based on their last exchange. But maybe she had changed her mind and decided that she couldn't forgive Lexa after all. Or maybe she had decided the exact contrary and was as anxious, as excited to see Lexa soon as Lexa was to see her. Either way, she couldn't wait anymore.

…..

The sun would disappear behind the horizon in a short time, but when Lexa and her warriors came across the very first Wasteland they had neutralized, almost two months ago, it was still enlightening the sky, painting the landscape in a golden light.

"-Here's the radio, Heda. There was something of a mild problem with the battery, but the Sky kids fixed it.

-Thank you."

She led her three-earred horse a little away from the column of riders, just enough not to be heard by everyone. Her heart was beating hard, pounding against her ribs. She had to take a minute to calm herself down before switching the radio on, and even then, with the feeling of her heart beating directly in her throat, she feared she wouldn't even be able to speak a word when someone would answer on the other side. _Let it be Clarke. Please, let it be Clarke._

The clicking noise triggered a flow of fire in her chest.

"-Raven listening. Who's talking?"

Lexa's throat tightened with disappointment, but the thrill of anticipation settled even more.

"-Hello, Raven. This is Lexa."

A loud metallic noise made her assume that Raven had rose so brutally that her seat had been sent to the floor in the move.

"-Oh my god, Commander! You… You're alive! Are you near to the camp?" She shouted something that Lexa didn't get to someone in the room before getting back to the communication. "-Are you alright? In one piece? Have you made it all the way to Polis?

-I'm fine, and yes, we went there. Right now, we are near the first Wasteland, three to four days to Camp Jaha. Is…

-I can't believe you're…" There was so much stupefaction in her voice that Lexa raised her head at the sky to check on the moon. Well, it was still the second moon. By the time she would get to the camp, it would be the very end of it, but still, she was in time.

"-Well, right in time," Raven resumed. "-There is so much you need to be briefed about. The Sea people delegation has arrived, with their princess…

-Dorian is in Camp Jaha?" Lexa cut her, her focus on Clarke briefly interrupted by her surprise.

"-Dorian… Hum, no, we got Yara. She's the Sea princess, right? She's not an impostor or…

-No, of course. She is the princess, I was only thinking of her older sister. Where do they stand in this, then?

-It's good for us. Their fleet is already moving, they agreed to help our army to get to all of Alie's bases that can be reached by water.

-Wait, is our army in the move yet?

-No, we still haven't heard from the South Nation, so… We have sent units, though; Wick and I have found a way to stop around twenty Wastelands while you were away, so that's in process.

-Twenty! Raven, this is… Thank you.

-You react the exact same way as Clarke," Raven said, and she stopped her sentence brutally, as if she had let out something she shouldn't have. But maybe Lexa was just reading too much into it because just hearing Clarke's name too her breath away. Still, she managed to question Raven in a steady voice.

"-Have you sent for her? I would like to…

-Er, listen… She's not around right now."

Lexa heard the sound of a metal door in Raven's side. The girl's few words had frozen her on her horse.

"-What happened?

-Look, Octavia's here, I think she's better placed to explain. But don't be… I mean, Clarke is… fine, now. Sort of.

-What?" This time, Lexa's self-control shattered, and her voice slipped in high-pitched territory. "-What happened? Is she hurt?"

Raven didn't answer, but she heard her say something to Octavia, which was followed by protestations, and then Octavia's voice rose from the radio.

"-Commander? Are…

-What happened to Clarke? What is Raven refusing to tell me?" Lexa asked, in a tone that made clear that she wouldn't accept any other answer than the one she was asking for. Octavia took a deep breath before getting out of the room and closing the door.

"-She… Commander, did you know about her dreams?" Lexa's eyes widened.

"-She told you?" She didn't know whether that development was worrying or reassuring.

"-Oh, so you really did know. And do you believe her? Believe it?"

Lexa's answer came in an icy tone. "-Of course I believe her.

-But, did she… Did she really saw the silver-eyed before you did?

-Yes. She told me her people wouldn't believe her, but I still find your lack of trust in her even more unbelievable than her dreams." There was a silence on the line, before Octavia spoke again, all the fight gone from her voice.

"-I didn't say I don't trust her. It's just hard to believe. But, Commander, if this is true, I think you need to get here as fast as you can. Look, Clarke was… sick.

-Sick how? The way she was when I found her at the dropship?" Lexa had stopped paying attention to the direction her horse was going in, or to the group of warriors few feet from her. She had found a new type of calm, as if she had been split in two, one part of her scared and panicking, and the other burning of cold rage, considering the ways she could get Alie to suffer for this.

"-Yes," Octavia answered. "-She's better now, she's still herself, but… I'll get the radio in the infirmary so you can talk to her, okay? I think it's simpler if she explains to you herself.

-Yes, do that. Do it now.

-Sure. Just wait few minutes, her mother probably won't be pleased that I wake her up, so I'm not gonna tell her and I'll do it discreetly.

-Wait. If Clarke is sleeping, I don't want to disturb her.

-Oh, she'd want me to wake her up if it's to talk to you."

The following minutes were a torture to Lexa. She spotted Shaïra watching her, offering her to come join her, but she gestured her to stay away, forcing herself not to think of anything, not to feel the gnawing fear in her guts, only waiting for Octavia to bring the radio to Clarke. Waiting to finally hear Clarke's voice. There were muffled voices through the radio, which she assumed to be Octavia's and Abby's, and she imposed herself to keep breathing correctly, tears burning her eyes and threatening to roll on her cheeks. Octavia's voice, again, but gentle and soft: "-No, it's been barely twenty minutes. But I have good news. Guess who's online waiting to talk to you." A silence, and then, finally, her voice, a little groggy but clear, and perplex. "-Who's this?"

…..

"-Hey, Clarke. Wake up." Clarke felt her friend's hand on her shoulder, and a gentle shake.  
"-Wake up."

She stirred, laboriously forced her eyes open. It felt like she didn't sleep that long, and she was drowsy enough to suppose that she was still downed by the sleep medication, but if Octavia insisted, it had to be important. Coming back to full awake mode was hard, though, and she managed it only when Octavia passed a piece of cloth imbibed with cold water on her neck and temples.

"-Helping?" Her second asked.

"-Yeah," Clarke voiced, opening her eyes for good. "-Thanks. What's going on? Did you talk to the leaders?

-No, it's been barely twenty minutes. But I have good news. Guess who's online waiting to talk to you."

Clarke rolled on her side to het the radio, wondering why Octavia was making mysteries.

"-Who's this?

-Clarke! Clarke, it's me. Are you…

-_Lexa?_" She gripped to the radio with an uncontrollable force as Octavia stepped down. "-Lexa, is that you? Is that really you? Are you all right? Are you hurt? Where are you? Is…

-Breathe, Clarke. I am unharmed. It's me and I'm fine.

-Oh my god. Oh, Lexa. Lexa. I thought..." She burst in tears without warning, and it was sobbing that she kept trying to talk. "-You're not hurt? Really? Where…Where are you?

-Don't cry. Don't cry, Clarke. I really am fine, there is nothing to be upset about."

Clarke smiled between her tears, more at the sound of Lexa's voice –Lexa!- than to what she was saying.

"-I'm not crying because of… I'm just so, so happy to hear you, Lexa. I thought you… I thought I'd never hear your voice again. I missed your voice."

She heard –just this sound was the living proof that Alie was wrong about everything, people, love- Lexa laugh, softly, with an audible happiness and relief.

-Yes. I missed yours too, truly. But I told you we'd meet again.

-Oh, well… The thousands of living-dead between you and I made me doubt it a little, I'll admit it. Oh, Lexa. I can't believe… Are you coming back?

-Of course. In three, four days. Clarke, I…

-No. No, no, no.

-What?

-It's too long. Lexa, you have to come back as soon as you can. Everyone here is in danger, and I need you to help me. I don't know how much time we still have.

-All right." The speed with which Lexa accepted her words silenced Clarke. Everything she had said lately had been contested, discussed, she had had to enforce every one of her words, sometimes in blood, but Lexa… An unbelievable relief overflowed her suddenly. Lexa was alive. Lexa was almost there.  
"-We'll ride day and night, which should get us here the day after tomorrow, then." Lexa paused, and repeated Clarke's name, saddened by her cries.

"-I'm okay, I'm just… Come back. Come back. I can't stand not having you…

-I'm on my way. But, Clarke… You have me. Wherever I am.

-Oh, what a smooth talker you are, Commander." Clarke teased to not show how much those few words really moved her. And because she did feel happy enough to be joking, for the first time in weeks. It made Lexa laugh again, and Clarke with her, overwhelmed by how beautiful this sound was.

"-How are you, Clarke?" Lexa asked again. "-Octavia told me that Alie…

-I'd… Rather not talk about it. Not now.

-Oh. As you wish. But are you allright?" The concern in her voice made it seem like there was no more important question to be asked in the world.

"-I am," Clarke answered softly. "-I am now. Just..."

Abby's arrival interrupted her. "-Who are you talking to? You should be resting! Octavia, did you bring this radio here?"

-Your mother?" Lexa guessed.

-Yeah. Hold on. Mom, I… Hey, no! Give me that back!

-Clarke, that's enough. You need to rest.

-I'm just talking! How is that…

-Come on, Abby, she…

-You don't get to talk, Octavia. I let you in so you could watch over her, no stop her to rest.

-Mom, give me the radio back."

Instead of doing what Clarke asked her to, her mother forced the radio in Octavia's hands.

"-Clarke, listen to me. You're not well enough to be up. If you won't sleep, I'm really sorry, but I'll have to give you medication again.

-Mom, no…" Clarke started, before seeing Bellamy standing near and realizing that the two of them had already decided to go with it anyway. She tried to keep her voice straight. "-Don't do this. I'll rest as soon as I'm done with this, okay? Just give me few minutes… Stop! _Stop! Octavia!_" Her second rushed to her, stopped by Bellamy, who held her away from Clarke as Abby injected her yet another dose of medicine. This time again, the effect was almost immediate and her legs gave up under her in just few seconds. Her mother sat her back in the bed, holding her against her, gently caressing her hair. Clarke weakly struggled. "-Lexa…"

Bellamy let out a muffled exclamation of pain when Octavia hit him in the ribs to get to Clarke, handing her the radio while she was still awake. "-Lexa…" Clarke repeated, unaware of the new tears rolling on her face. An irrational fear was taking over her, that if she couldn't talk to Lexa, hear her at least once more, tell her to come back once again, she'd fall asleep only to realize when she'd wake up that this had been a dream, that Lexa had never been talking to her, that she really was dead as Alie had shown her, drowned in that river, her body rejected on the bank by the stream, lying somewhere no one would find her, left to rot or be eaten by any wild animal.

"-Don't worry, Clarke. I'm coming back, I'll be there the day after tomorrow." She tried to answer her, to fight the sleepiness to keep hearing Lexa but only an inarticulate mutter came out, and before she knew it, she was sleeping in her mother's arms.

Octavia stepped back, still holding the radio. "-Get out," Abby told her. "-And don't come back." She was stroking Clarke's hair, and between Bellamy and her, Octavia realized she had no chance to win.

"-Fine", she spat, turning to the door, too angry to stand them anyway. Lexa was losing it on the other end of the line when she raised the device at ear reach again.

"-Get the radio back to Clarke!

-I'm sorry, Commander, she's out for now. They just sedated her to make sure of it.

-They _what?_" The Commander's tone gave goosebumps to Octavia.

"-They're just worried sick, they're doing what they think is best.

-Get the radio to Yara, then," The Commander said, her voice as tensed as the string of a bow.  
"-And as soon as I'm done with her, get Clarke out of there.

-I can't make her get better just by wanting it…

-I did not tell you to do that. I told you to get her out of there, even if you have to carry her away.

-What, you mean… I can't kidnap Clarke out of the infirmary!

-This is not a question, Octavia kom Trikru, but an order from your Commander. I don't want Abby or Bellamy anywhere near Clarke until I am back. Understood?

-Yes, Commander."

She didn't witness Yara and Lexa's discussion, having been asked to wait outside of Yara's room. The Sea people had installed their camp just outside of Camp Jaha, near the lake, and in few weeks had built a bunch of wooden habitations, Yara's being the closest one of the water, and the biggest one. Octavia had been allowed to enter it, but not to go further than the very first room, while Yara spoke to Lexa. The princess joined her after only few minutes, and Octavia stood to face her.

"-Your brother and Clarke's mother are holding her against her will," she stated.

Octavia felt the need to defend Bellamy. "-They don't have bad intentions," she said, unconvinced by her own words.

-Distrusting your own leader is considered as bad intentions, where I come from," Yara struck back. "-Lexa asked me to shelter her here, which I will gladly do, but I still need you to bring her discreetly. We are on your lands, and I don't want your people to know your leader had been brought here without her mother and lieutenant's consent."

Octavia accepted the condition. Of course Yara didn't want it to look like she was holding Clarke captive or anything. Apparently, no one cared that Octavia herself would totally look like a kidnapper, though. And there was still the matter of how she was even gonna get Clarke out of the infirmary. There was no way Abby or Bellamy would let her in without surveillance now. She finally decided to get to Auri to borrow the two guards he had chosen to escort Clarke whenever she needed it, Yalle and Nath. Yalle was young, maybe twenty-five, and barely taller than Octavia, while her cousin, few years older, was almost a giant, but both looked equally deadly. She took the two of them with her to the infirmary, picking up Lincoln on their way. It was already dark by the time they came back from the Grounder camp, and the air so cold that most people were locked up inside of the Arch, which would at least help to… snatch Clarke away in a discreet manner.

Bellamy put up a paltry fight against the unbelievably strong Nath, and Abby tried even more, but she was of course no match for a grounder warrior, and Yalle immobilized her efficiently. The sleep medication was clearly still fully effective, and Clarke unaware of what was going on, which was somewhat impressive given the sound level that the argument had reached between the three Sky people. Lincoln put one hand behind her back, settling her against him so her head would rest on his shoulder, one under her knees, and lifted her like she wasn't heavier than a child.

Octavia left with only Clarke and Lincoln, leaving Yalle and Nath with orders to restrain Abby and Bellamy for an hour before going back to their camp. By this time, Clarke would be safe in Yara's place, and the two Sky people would have no way to know where she'd be.

Yara was waiting for them in the out, in the center of her camp, and she scanned the snowy space behind them, trying to make sure they hadn't been followed.

"-Is she all right?" She asked once inside.

"-She's just sleeping.

-Forced to sleep," Yara corrected. The ideas seemed to be particularly unpleasant to her.

"-Well, yeah, but…" Octavia's protestation died. She wasn't in charge of defending Bellamy's stupid overreaction, after all.

Yara led them in one of the rooms, agreeably lit and warmed by a firestone, one of those hollowed white stones that the sea people used to safely lit fires in. A white-haired woman bowed to Yara when they entered.

"-This is Neyrene, my personal healer. She will take care of Clarke. If you want to stay with her, I will have a second bed prepared."

Octavia watched Lincoln lay Clarke on the bed. She knew it was only the medication, but there was something very unsettling about how unresponsive her friend was. What if Alie was trying something again _right now _and that Clarke couldn't even stop it by waking up because of the drug?

"-Do you think it's better to let her sleep it off, or can you help her get rid of the drugs?" Yara asked to her healer, eerily echoing Octavia's thoughts. Neyrene approached Clarke's sleeping form to examine her, without any reaction from the Sky Princess for the few minutes it lasted. Yara had sent Lincoln outside, and she stood in the middle of the room, frowning, her chin resting against one of her hand while her other arm was pressed against her chest. Her look never left Clarke, and Octavia absurdly thought that she could have illustrated the definition of concern in a dictionary.

"-This is not a good sleep," Neyrene finally said. "-She won't get much rest from it.

-So? Do we wake her up?

-No need, Princess. I can give her a remedy that will help her sleep for real instead of being unconscious. She'll be much better by morning."

Yara nodded her approval and turned to Octavia. "-Do you wish to stay with her for the night?"

She wouldn't go anywhere, Octavia realized, looking at Clarke while Neyrene lifted her head a little to make her drink the medicine. She hated how helpless her friend seemed, when she had seen her strong enough to make grown warriors fear her. No, she wouldn't go anywhere tonight. This was her job as a second, staying by her leader's side through her times of weakness as well as when she was strong and leading. Even the unpleasantness of the situation didn't stop her to appreciate the irony of it, though. Only months ago, she would have done anything to not let the Arch Princess get in charge over the rest of them, and even though a big part of their interactions had been arguing and disagreeing, she was now the first ready to fight anyone to make sure that Clarke would stay in charge and lead them.


	29. Chapter 29

**Hey there! I know it's been a while since last update, I really had a "what's the point?" time after 307, and when I decided to keep on with the story anyway, I had troubles writing it without going "WHYYY" everytime I had to type Lexa's name, so, not helping ^^ I'm not all that happy with this chapter, it took me a long time and I changed it few times without really getting where I wanted, but I decided to go with it as it is now and focus on the rest rather than wasting my time trying to fix it for even longer... And next update should be in a more reasonable amount of time!**

**Thanks again for reading =)**

**PS: Also, I decided to live in a state of denial where season 3 never happened and Lexa is still out there in the wild pining over Clarke and everything is still possible including being happy with your girl on TV. There. Fixed it. **

At first, she thought it was the sea, because it was liquid and infinite, and if it didn't look like the pictures she had seen, she didn't know what else it could be. But it soon appeared so silvery, and it froze her with fear as consciousness came back to her. She wasn't awake, not for real, otherwise she would have been in a bed, probably still watched over by Bellamy or her mother, but her mind was. And she had no idea where the hell she was, or even if it was an Alie's dream or just a plain old nightmare. Alie had never showed her an entire sea of silver, but…

She jumped back when the substance under her feet changed to suddenly look animated, alive. Trying to get away was of no use, though, for the silver was all around her, and her few steps back only made her feet sink deeper in. Acting as some kind of screen, the silver let Camp Jaha appear before her, crowded with people, and the camps of the different clans around it. She could guess what would be coming next, but no guess, not even the sight of the missile that had hit TonDC, could have prepared her for this.

It started as nothing, just a little silvery shiny ball, star-shaped as Lexa had told the Council, floating in the air in the center of the camp. It kept shining –it seemed to Clarke that the air itself was getting silvery around it. She got closer to watch, at the exact instant the core exploded, spreading the wildest fire she had ever seen, setting more than half of the camp on fire in seconds. Screams followed as flames licked and gnawed space around them, screams of fear and suffering; wherever she looked, she could see burned, melted mass of flesh vaguely human-shaped.

In the image showed by the silver ocean, everything sped up until the vision got blurry, and when it stabilized again, it was showing Camp Jaha after the fire had died, maybe few days after the explosion; the silver shone through the ground and there were no more screams, no more fire; only the remains of what had been. Only when it moved to show her what was left of the grounder camps, she saw the new silver-eyed, all the people turned around this new Wasteland. Most of them were warriors she had never met, but as the vision in the silver kept moving, she recognized several of the chiefs; she saw some of her birds, she saw grounder youngsters and people she knew from the Arch, all aimlessly walking around the Wasteland, all of their eyes silvered, wandering among the rotten cadavers and the metal wreckage they didn't seem to see.

At first, she held on pretty well, knowing this was just a vision, but as time kept passing, the endless procession of dead and half-dead people started to get to her anyway, and an overwhelming feeling of despair slowly settled in. All those lives, and maybe she wouldn't manage to save even one of them because she wasn't good enough, or strong enough to lead her people.

Then, she started to see people she personally knew, first some of the delinquents first sent to Earth, then Auri and his brother, and –even though she had been expecting something like this, it came as a shock- Raven, and Octavia, right next to the fence of the camp; the next silver-eyed she was shown was Yara, followed by Monty, Indra, Bellamy, _her mother_. Of course, she thought while trying to stay calm when she felt like she could literally have a nervous breakdown right here and now, of course Alie would use the image of those she loved to torture her.

Knowing this didn't stop her from losing it when Abby turned directly to her, watched her with silvered eyes from the image in the silver sea and spoke to her with Alie's voice. She didn't hear what the AI was trying to tell her –this voice was the last drop that made her break, and for the next minutes, she only heard her own screams. She was partly trying to wake herself up, but mostly, she just couldn't take one more fight inside her own mind and just hearing Alie terrified her.

She woke up so brutally that Octavia, drowsing on a bed across the room, practically jumped out of it when hearing her. Clarke had ended up sitting in her own bed, her heart beating almost audibly, out of breath, as if she had been screaming in reality as well as in the dream.

Her second rushed out of bed, full of concern. "-Hey, are you okay? Did you… Have one of those dreams? Did you see anything useful?

-I'm not goddamn receiving device, Octavia!" She barked, surprising the both of them. "-I'm sorry, I'm sorry, O, really," she spoke almost immediately, to appease the irritation she could see on Octavia's face. Her friend had crossed the room to get to her, but stepped away at Clarke's yelling at her. "-I didn't… I just…

-No, you don't have to apologize. I'm the one who's sorry, I didn't mean to press you. You just freaked me out by waking up like that. Are you feeling all right?

-I'm…" Clarke brought her legs closer to her body, closing her arms around her knees. "-Last time we talked, you had… You brought the radio, and… I mean, was that a dream, or…

-No, no. That was real. Lexa's coming back tomorrow."

Clarke closed her eyes just the time to breathe out, slowly, felling her heartbeat reach a more normal speed. _In your face, Alie._ She surprised herself by smiling at the thought and raised her head at Octavia.

"-Where are we?

-Yara's place. Lexa talked to her and arranged for us to take you out of the infirmary until your mother and my idiotic brother calm down. Why, don't smile like it's the cutest thing someone's ever done for you, she practically threatened me of I don't know which grounder punishment if I didn't agree to kidnap you! That was not fun! I can't believe you're actually making fun of me right now.

-I'm not," Clarke gently protested. "-I'm just really glad not to be there anymore. They scared me. I mean, I know they both wanted to help me, but I just felt trapped and so helpless, it's… awful that someone you love makes you feel that way, whatever the reason.

-Yeah, I know. I know what it's like to be trapped and powerless. Didn't like it more than you.

-Thank you, Octavia. Really, thank you for…

-Hey, I'm your second. I've got your back.

-My friend is what you are."

This earned her an unexpected hug from Octavia, almost rough but sincere all the same.

"-You're my friend too. I'm glad you're okay."

Clarke nodded against the other girl's shoulder, hugging her back and slightly smiling in the warmth of the embrace. This was real, she thought, her friend alive and next to her, this was real and the destroyed world Alie had shown her would never be.

"-Yara asked to be warned when you'd wake up. Should I go tell her?" Octavia asked when they parted.

-Yeah, thanks. But, I could use five minutes alone first.

-Sure. I'll be just outside."

She stayed immobile on her bed after Octavia left. She obviously wasn't free from Alie and had to assume that probably sooner than later, the AI would eventually manage to turn or kill her. But Octavia was now warned about the most immediate danger, and Lexa -on her way back- would stop any risk of civil war; plus, if any of what Lexa had told the Council about the alliance was true, she wouldn't let the Sky people down even if Clarke was to die. Maybe it was all right, then. If she died now, there would probably be some problems, but nothing her people couldn't handle with Lexa's protection. If she was turned by Alie, though, it would be another song.

Octavia, as she promised, was right behind the door, waiting for her, and Clarke asked to talk to her before she went to find Yara.

"-Listen, O. Right now, I think I'm fine for a while, and I'll go talk to Sarita to see if she can buy me some time, but eventually, Alie's going to come back and win.

-Clarke, don't worry. Bellamy still had antidote, and…

-No, my point is, someday, antidote won't be enough. I can't win this, it's not a question of fighting back hard enough. Unless we actually manage to kill her in the next few days or find some kind of miraculous cure, it's going to happen. Or she'll kill me first, I don't know. Point is, in the near future, I'm going to become your enemy and it will be dangerous for all of you.

-How will it be dangerous to us? If that happens, we won't be listening to whatever you'll say, no offense, and we won't let you do… Anything that might arm us. Or you.

-Maybe you won't, but, look, being her prophet isn't like being a silver-eyed…

-Prophet?" Octavia interrupted her, brows furrowed in a perplex expression.

"-That's what she calls it. It's what Jaha was, brainwashed but in a way still himself. He remembered everything, he truly thought he was doing what was right for his people. I know you wouldn't be fooled, but when this happens to me, I could easily convince half the grounders here to follow me to the City of Lights, for example, or let Alie know everything we're up to, or… Seriously, O. I'd be damn dangerous, and you know it.

-Where are you going with this? Do you want me to promise I'll tie you up until we figure out how to cure you if Alie really does her thing?

-No, that would still be too dangerous. I could escape, someone could free me. Please, Octavia, you have to understand. She can't have me, all right?"

Octavia's eyes widened and she stared at Clarke with horror.

"-No! You're not asking this to me right now!

-Listen…

-What the fuck is wrong with you, Clarke? I'm your friend, I've stood by you, worried sick about you, I've worked with you on everything that's been going on, we went to war together! You can't ask me to… You can't be seriously asking me to kill you!

-And what else… Who else could I ask? Be serious, Bellamy will never do that, and I can't just take a random guard, freak them out with stories of visions and prophets and expect them to go along with it. And anyone else close… They either won't do it or hate themselves about it. Mercy kill isn't easier than self-defense, and you're the only one I can see deal with this. Look…

-I can't do that!

-Yes, you can. Because I will be dangerous to everyone, and you can't put lives at risk to save mine, okay? It's just one life. I trust you're strong enough to take one life to save a lot more.

-Wow, calculating with lives is not strength!

-Well, sometimes it's necessary. You know that, Octavia, otherwise you'd never have forgiven me everything that happened before Mount Weather. Please, you're the only person I can ask for this. The other won't do it, and I can't… I cannot ask Lexa."

The thought truly scared her as she pictured the situation reversed, Lexa having been somehow turned by Alie and herself having to... No, she couldn't imagine having to hurt her –and couldn't imagine making Lexa put her down. Because she would do it if necessary, it would break her heart, and if Clarke knew one thing about Lexa, it was that she had already been through way more heartbreaks than anyone should in a lifetime. Now, she couldn't _protect _her from another one, no more than she could protect herself from Alie, but she was not about to make things even worse for Lexa.

"-Sure you can't," Octavia answered bitterly. "-Despite the fact that there is _nothing _between the two of you.

-Oh my god, O, this is so not the topic of this discussion!

-Yeah, it is! If we're supposed to kill you, I can't believe I'm even saying this, I'd like to know why I'm the one who has to end up with my friend's blood on my hands! Why isn't she the one who had to put up with this nonsense?

-You know why," Clarke admitted in a breath. I seemed to sadden Octavia more than it angered her.

"-So you lied to us about that too," she stated.

-No! It's not like you think. Nothing happened. We… I know she cares, that's it, and I… I do too. But nothing happened.

-What do you mean, nothing happened? Your girlfriend leaves for a two months trip in Zombieland and you two didn't even…I don't know, made the good-byes count?" The question seemed to distract Octavia from the real discussion, so Clarke rolled with it.

"-Last time we saw each other, I basically told her to get the hell out of my sight.

-Why the heck would you do that?

-Because I wanted her to stay," she replied, which was welcomed by a more-perplex-than-ever look from Octavia. "-It made more sense at the time," she added.

"-Well I hope so, 'cause from where I'm standing, it doesn't make any. What did she say?

-To make up my damn mind about whether I hated or liked her.

-Oh, so it didn't make any sense to her either. And did you?

-Okay, that's between her and me. Anyway, I can't make her do that. I just can't hurt her that way.

-So you save the fun for me.

-I don't enjoy it either, you know. I'd be the happiest of us if it doesn't come to that, but if it does, I need you to make sure I won't be a danger to everyone." Octavia's expression changed to anger, somehow relieving Clarke who knew that angry Octavia always did what needed to be done. "-So we have an agreement?" She insisted. The answer came with more bitterness than real conviction.

"-Screw you, Clarke. Seriously.

-It's not my fault," Clarke reminded her. She wasn't completely sure it was true, but Octavia softened a little. "-I'm just trying to do what's best for everyone."

Her friend finally nodded, accepting both the explanation and Clarke's request. She kept staring at Clarke, looking for something fitting to say, but came up with nothing appropriate, and in the end settled on Yara's subject, since she was supposed to warn the Princess that Clarke was awake.

Clarke found herself alone in the room once more, which left her time to actually examine it a little. She had no idea, before that, of how the places built by the Sea people looked like inside. This was the first time she entered one of them. The first time she entered the camp of the Sea people at all. She had always met Yara inside of Camp Jaha. She wondered how the discussion between Lexa and the princess had went, mostly how Lexa had reacted to their brief discussion. She had been worried enough to find a way to help Clarke from where she was until her return. That was the moment it finally hit Clarke. She was going to see Lexa. They were both alive and were going to see each other. Lexa was coming back to her, as she promised, and Clarke, for the first time in weeks, was actually excited about things to come. She wanted Lexa to be there more than she had wanted anything since they landed on Earth –and despite the importance of it, it wasn't about reassuming commandment or fighting wars. She just wanted Lexa. She wanted to hear Lexa's voice, to fell Lexa's presence, to see her face when the girl lowered her walls in front of her. She wanted to feel the way she did when Lexa was around. She wanted to let her know how much she really cared, that she had finally made up her mind. Even though the situation was what it was, she couldn't help picturing it –Lexa reaching the camp with her warriors, seeing Clarke waiting for her as they promised each other, and coming straight to her –no matter how much she had wished for Lexa to be there during those months, she had never let herself hope that much, project herself, have actual expectations, and this was kind of overwhelming.

The noise of the door being opened brought her back to the present time. She left the bed and stood up, which was considerably easier than it had been few hours ago, letting her know that she had gotten rid of the sleep medication during the night.

"-Clarke," Yara greeted her with a smile. "-I'm glad to see you better. How do you feel?

-I'm good." Her eyes flickered away from Yara's for a second. "-Thank you, Yara. I realize helping me might have put you in a difficult position, and…" She stopped as Yara shook her head.

"-I've only obeyed my Commander's orders and protected an ally. This was the only line of action.

-Thank you anyway. It's good to know who to trust."

Yara's smile reappeared as Clarke stretched out a hand to her, and she took it grounder style, slightly squeezing Clarke's forearm.

"-So Lexa is almost back," Yara suddenly said after their arms parted, in a roguish tone. "-Any… plans about that?"

The words themselves could have been innocent but Yara's voice was so suggestive that Clarke felt her cheeks starting to burn.

"-You do realize ambassadors shouldn't mess with leaders for fun, right?"

Yara had a light, soft laugh before getting back to a more serious attitude and offering her a bath and a meal, both of which Clarke gratefully accepted. It had been almost forty-eight hours since she passed out during the War Council session, and a bath would be more than welcome at this point.

Regarding the Council, she thought, she would have to talk to Raven and Monty about the Wasteland. Monty had spent so much time studying all the files that he could open that he would know better than anyone about the different phases, the way it evolved, and Raven was the expert on how to neutralize it.

The delightful contact of the hot water interrupted her thoughts for a while and she just let herself slide in the bathtub, her body relaxing entirely. The image of Lexa came to her mind again, but this time it was Lexa in pain, trying to stay above the surface of raging waters –did that even happen for real? Probably, she guessed; if Alie could have shown her completely false things, she would have shown Lexa dying for good. But she was all right, Clarke forced herself to remember. Whatever happened in that river, no matter how Lexa had managed not to drown, this was the only important thing: she didn't die.

_I wanted her to kiss me, _Clarke suddenly admitted, drawn to think back to the day Lexa had left the camp. _I'd probably would have freaked out all the same but still I wanted her to. I wouldn't have pushed her away. But I guess she thought I would, and she could have died thinking that…_

Somewhere along the way the anger had faded, apparently. She had resented Lexa so much, wanted to erase her from her life rather than to face her feelings, been so _angry _at her afterwards… Now she was only craving for a second chance with her.

….

Raven, for once, wasn't working when Clarke got to her headquarters, but apparently playing around with Wick using –yep, helium- and despite the urgency of the situation, Clarke couldn't help but smile at the sight. Raven having fun was a nice and rare enough thing to witness.

Wick saw her first, and when Raven followed his look, she jumped on her feet and lunged at Clarke to hug her.

"-Hey! Are you okay? Octavia said you were, but she wouldn't even tell where you were, and…

-I'm fine." She hugged her back before Raven let go and took few steps back.

"-You really are okay?" Clarke reassured her a second time. "-Then what the hell, Griffin?! How long has this been happening? Why didn't you say anything?

-Raven, it' not the right time to for…

-No, you're not getting away so easily.

-Maybe you two need me gone for a while," Wick intervened, trying to sneak his way out of the room.

"-No, we don't…" Clarke started at the same time Raven answered him: "-Yeah, thanks, I'll tell you when we're done.

-Raven..." Clarke tried again as Wick hastily vanished.

"-Nope, we're talking about this. I understand wanting to deal with everything by yourself, but you can't keep this going when it almost killed you. Can you imagine how scared we've been?

-I'm sorry, okay?

-It's far from okay! Look, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, I just want you to be honest with us. Why didn't you tell us what was happening?

-Because it wouldn't have made any difference!

-Why would you say that? If you had been given the antidote sooner you'd have been all right sooner and we would have avoided the last two days!

-Oh, Rae…" Raven looked taken aback by the nickname and the sad way Clarke had talked. "-I'm not… all right for good. The antidote didn't cure me the first time, it didn't this time either. I just got more time, but… What I'm trying to say is I'll end up exactly how Alie wants me to someday anyway, so I didn't see the point of burdening everyone with it." She hated herself for the way Raven's eyes filled with tears when she stopped talking.

"-So what?" The girl protested. "-We could have worked on this if you had told us! We'll figure something out, Clarke, that's what we always do.

-Not always."

A heavy silence fell between the two of them at these words. Raven eventually turned away, and Clarke was practically certain that her friend was trying to not let her see that she was crying. She sighed, not certain of how to handle this. Raven wasn't exactly open to comfort.

"-So you're just giving up? On your own life?

-There is nothing I can do about it! Except maybe destroy Alie fast enough, I guess…

-And if we don't, what happens to you then?" Raven snapped, turning back to her. "-Are you even going to survive another attack like this one? If she turns you and that we destroy her, will it kill you too?

-I don't know," Clarke admitted, shaking her head. "-I don't know, Raven. All I do know is that we need more containers for the cores and those long-distance radios you've been working on, because everyone's life depends on it. And I'm not gonna give up on that.

-Radios are a go," Raven replied almost automatically. "-But we don't have any more material for new containers.

-Then you and Wick need to figure something out. Get that new kid Cade if you need, get anything you need, actually. It's really important.

-Wait, are you seriously leaving like that? You…" Raven grabbed her as she turned to the door, to make her face her again.

"-I was only trying to spare you all of this, okay?" Clarke said apologetically. She managed not to start crying at her turn, but couldn't keep her voice steady. "-It was never about lying to you, but everyone has things to deal with and it just wasn't fair to dump mines on all of you…

-But we're not talking about crying at night or being bummed here, we're talking about your life! You're in danger and you told no one! And it's not like you know for sure that we can't do anything about it, you just chose to not even hope!

-I _chose_? You think I chose any of this?

-Hey, don't yell at me!" Raven shouted to match her tone. "-Stop snapping at us when we're just trying to help you! Look…" Her voice softened as soon as she saw that Clarke was letting her talk. "-I know there's a lot of pressure on you, and I know more than anyone what it is to wanna deal with bad things on your own, but, Clarke, you need help. I'm not saying this to demean you or anything, but seriously, you need to let us help you. Take a load off.

-Here we are again," Clarke sighed with exasperation. "-Listen, I'm sorry I scared you, all right? But this had been happening for a while, and it doesn't change anything to the fact that there is a war to be fought, and I would really like all of you to stop worrying about me and start worrying about everyone else. Maybe I'm gonna turn or die, who knows, but that's like the less important thing happening right now.

-Okay. Okay. First of all, the bat that got stuck in this room last week, couldn't get out and flew its teethy face everywhere scared me. You bleeding out and convulsing on the floor, all other level of fear than just 'scared'. Second, I'm not telling you to stop doing anything and spend the next days sunbathing! I'm just telling you that your freaking life matters! You matter, not just as our leader! I love you, you know that? And I've been feeling like the worst since the Council because I knew something was wrong with you and I let you talk me out of it. Do you have any idea how much it would hurt me to lose you? How much it would hurt Monty? I don't think Octavia would ever stop being angry if you were to die, and I'm not even talking about Bellamy, or your mother, and seriously, your girlfriend would just lose it.

-For the last time, Lexa is not…

-Yeah, save it, Griffin. What I mean… If it was anyone of us that Alie was trying to get to, you'd move mountains to save them, but it looks like you've decided all on your own you weren't worth saving. And it's not true. You're one of us and we care about you and we're not just gonna give up on you because you feel like you don't matter. So stop trying to make us."

….

Monty didn't ask any questions when Clarke asked him to compile everything he knew about the beginning of a Wasteland; it took her asking for a simulation of a core explosion in Camp Jaha for him to stop what he was doing on the computer and give her a frightened look. "-Please tell me it's just in case.

-I hope so," she answered.

"-Clarke, is it going to happen? Please, just tell me. You can trust me, I won't tell anyone, but if it's true, I need to know.

-I think so. I need you to do this so we'll know how to be safe if it does happen.

-Ok…

-Monty, don't panic. I need you for this.

-No, I'm okay. It's just all so…

-I know. But we can avoid losses. We can save everyone, at least this time.

-Ok. Well, don't worry, no one else will hear about this from me. I'll let you know what I find.

-Thanks."

…..

She was weirdly happy to have to visit Sarita in her filled by fumes tent. A little anxious too, but mostly glad. It wasn't as if she had liked this atmosphere –it had only seemed pleasant compared to the outside air afterwards and still, she was welcoming the occasion. Octavia was nervously on the snow behind her, the radio Clarke always took to the Grounder Camp in her hand. Clarke had gave it to her, getting the idea that radio waves probably didn't circulate well in Sarita's tent.

"-She's waiting for you," said one of the guards, stepping outside of the tent. At his heavy breathing, Clarke guessed he could only go in while holding his breath if he didn't want to end up like Octavia last time. She nodded to him and gave a last look to Octavia before crossing the drape that the guard kept open for her.

She first breathed in with a sort of avidity, despite her nervousness, and welcomed the feeling of warmth inside her chest, the vertigo so slight it felt nice. Sarita was sitting in the back of the tent, watching her, and their looks met above the fire.

"-Welcome back, Princess. Will you join me?"

Clarke hesitated, so shortly that she didn't even come to a full stop but only slowed down a little before taking the few steps that separated her from the woman. She sat down to face her.

"-I wanna thank you for your help," she started.

-A very limited help, I am afraid," Sarita answered, not looking very concerned by the matter. Clarke guessed she knew this was just an introduction.

"-Still. It got me few weeks. It helped me fight Her, which I need to keep doing.

-And you seek the help of the spirits again?

-I seek anything that can help," Clarke said bluntly. "-My people need me right now. I'd do anything to keep them safe from Alie.

-I wish I could be of any help," Sarita said sadly. Her compassionate tone brought the bitter taste of despair in Clarke's mouth.

"-Don't you have any more of this powder you gave me?" She still had most of it with her few days ago, but as her morphine, it was gone since her stay at the infirmary. Now, she couldn't prove than her mother had went through the pockets of her coat, but on the other hand, it probably didn't vanish on its own.

"-I do," the answer came in a less than hopeful tone, almost dry. "-But it wouldn't help you much now. She is too strong and too close.

-But…" It had come out almost squeakily and Clarke didn't continue. She gulped and re-composed herself before trying to talk again. Which she didn't do after all; when she met Sarita's eyes, she saw the woman looking at her with true sorrow and understood how pointless it had been to ask for help.

"-I am truly sorry… Clarke. That powder can delay it a little more, but it will not last."

Clarke nodded, still feeling the grounder's look on her and sighed, suddenly fighting an access of self-pity that, if she had been alone, would have send her curl in a ball and cry on her fate.

"-I don't suppose you know how much time precisely?" At least it would help for scheduling, she thought.

"-Not precisely, but I won't tell you anything you don't know by saying you don't have much time left."

Clarke's eyes flickered away. "-No, nothing new. Well, thank you for your help anyway."

Sarita acknowledged the thanks by a brief nod.

"-You swore to obey me along with the rest of the Coalition," Clarke continued. For the first time in their meetings, it seemed that Sarita had not expected what she said.

"-I did." Waiting for the rest.

"-Until the Commander is back, that makes my orders the law.

-If you have orders to give, you should give them instead of going around.

-I was just making sure we were on the same page.

-We are, although you should not rely on people's words to judge of that.

-I'm not. You helped me against Alie and with the rest of the leaders, that's what I rely on to trust you now." Sarita considered her in silence and this time Clarke stood her look.

"-What can I do for you, then, Princess?" Clarke held back a sigh. No matter how many times she had heard that title said with true respect by the Grounders, she could almost never help hearing it the way Finn, Bellamy and Murphy first intended it.

"-What you said to the other chiefs, about the Spirits, the Commander and I, what did it mean?" Clarke asked instead of answering.

"-What I meant is what I said.

-Favor of the spirits is what you said, all right, but what does that… Whose spirits are they to begin with? Is it about who can breathe in here? Is it how they let you know who they favor? Do they talk to you, or is it interpretation? And how mandatory is it for the chiefs to follow the spirit's will?

-Most of the answers to those questions can only be learned through years of spiritual initiation. What I can tell you is that a chief who would go against their will would only alienate his own people. Going through with it would likely be the end of them.

-So… Technically, they have to do whatever you tell them to?"

Sarita had showed herself eerily imperturbable every time they had met but Clarke's reformulation seemed to not only cross the limits of that facade but to actually shock the chief.

"-The leaders of the Spirit Clan have been speaking on the behalf of the Spirits for generations. Our clan is devoted to the understanding and transmission of their will. We do not usurp their voices to gain power.

-I'm sorry," Clarke rapidly apologized for the offense she had apparently caused. "-I didn't mean to question that. I don't know your ways is all, and I don't understand why or how spirits I had never heard about support me. I apologize if I offended you."

Sarita's posture went less rigid. "-I am not offended, but a lot of our people could be. In the future, you should not ask such questions." Clarke nodded and as soon as Sarita relaxed, the atmosphere of the tent got less oppressive –she couldn't tell if something in the air really had changed with Sarita's mood. Things under this tent were weird enough to make it a real possibility, but maybe she was sort of high and starting to imagine things. She didn't know how Sarita was able to function while breathing these fumes all day; she had been in the tent for only few minutes and was already starting to feel… Yeah, weird was the most accurate words she could come up with. There was no one besides Sarita and her, but just outside of the field of vision she kept perceiving swift moves. Everything she really was seeing appeared blurry except for the woman in front of her and there was that tingle everywhere in her body the she expected to fade but that had instead accentuated. She felt the urge to exit the tent, to get real air instead of this fuzzy environment but couldn't bring herself to move from where she was, for it seemed like she had found the optimal position, where every part of her body felt comfortable.

She heard Sarita's voice breaking the silence that she realized had been lasting for a consequent time –but she was watching at the chief and did not see her speak. It was her voice, she was certain, even though she couldn't understand the words, and Sarita was looking at her with attention, her mouth absolutely motionless. Clarke shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts and resume their discussion but as the air around her, her mind remained cloudy.

"-You have heard that," The grounder stated.

"-What? What did you say just before? I didn't get…

-I have not _said _anything."

Clarke went through the list of possible questions. "-What's happening?" She finally managed, weirded out by how it sounded, as if a stranger was talking with her voice. "-Are you doing this?

-No, you are." There was satisfaction in the tone –and it wasn't Sarita's voice this time. This feeling was heard in all the other voices in the mist. Clarke jumped back on her feet, stepping away from the grounder in the same move.

"-Don't be afraid," Sarita told her. "-It will not get out of hands if you don't give in to fear." This came a little too late; everything had turned dark around Clarke, except for the woman facing her and the floating, shapeless lights surrounding them. Those were whispering to her, and she felt, buried in her mind, the presence of Alie and the beginning of one of her headaches.

"-No, make it stop, please make it stop!"

Even the lights disappeared and then it was just whispers in the dark, then silence and she didn't feel anything anymore, didn't think or see or hear anything.

It all came back at once when she opened her eyes to find herself still standing on her two feet and heard Sarita tell her something –but the words didn't seem to make sense.

"-Can you hear me?" Sarita asked –repeated. Clarke glanced around in confusion.

"-Yeah…" Everything was back to normal, cloaked by the smoke but free of lights and whispers. "-What was that? A bad trip of some sort?

-The Spirits, Clarke. You really have dispositions." The grounder said that as though it was a sad, regretful thing.

"-Dispositions for what? Hear spirits? All that happened is that I blacked out and Alie almost tried to…

-You didn't black out. You were in contact with the Spirits. Oh, you could do great things, Clarke, but She stops you. Otherwise you would have…" She stopped and sighed. "-Such a shame. I will make sure nothing like that happens again.

-You can control them?

-It's more complicated than that. You should not stay here too long though. What is it you wanted to tell me?

"-Wait," Clarke slowly protested. "-You said the Spirits acted with me the same way they did with the Commander. Did she… saw, heard them like that?"

Only silence and a meaningful look answered her.

"-You can't say that kind of things to other people? But you publicly said that she and I have their favor…

-That is something I can say without revealing anything. This is how it is, Clarke. You may talk about what happened to you, and the Commander is free to share her experience with anyone she judges fitted, but I cannot reveal anything."

Clarke accepted the explanation with a nod. She was definitely going to compare her notes with Lexa's anyway, now.

She informed Sarita about the Wasteland Alie was about to set, effectively breaking her serenity for the second time, and told her to discreetly get her people ready to leave. Lexa was about to be back, but until she hadn't ordered herself to her army to evacuate, Clarke didn't want to take any risks.

Despite what happened in the tent, despite spending the rest of the meting worrying about it happening again, she dreaded the moment to come out of it. She didn't care to reiterate this painful experience and to be honest, minus the speaking lights, the hot, smoky and fuzzy atmosphere of the tent was growing on her. Leaving a troubled Sarita behind her, she took a last deep breath of the air of the tent before stepping outside. She remembered to protect her eyes but couldn't do anything against the cold, terrible compared to the warmth inside. She breathed out as slowly as she could, delaying the moment where she would have to really go back to the outside air. Octavia joined her practically the second she stepped out.

"-Hey. You missed Lexa on the radio twenty minutes ago.

-Is she okay?" Pain trailed all the way through her chest as she talked.

"-Yes. She said she'd be there at dawn. You all right? Is it that spirit thing again?"

Clarke confirmed while taking a prudent breath. It still hurt like hell and generally felt like she was swallowing blocks of ice, but at least Octavia didn't have to help her this time, though she did have to wait few minutes for Clarke to start breathing normally again.

"-I'm okay," Clarke finally answered to her worried look. "-Sorry about that.

-Seriously, what do you get high on in this tent?

-I have no idea, actually. So you talked to Lexa?

-Yes. She asked if our doctors could take care of her team when they get here, it seems that most of them aren't in great shape. And she wasn't pleased to miss you, but I told her you were awake and all right –ish.

-You said that?

-I thought honesty was the best policy here. C'mon, you should lay down a moment when we're back to the camp, take a nap. You don't look that good.

-I can't, I have to go talk to Indra, Auri and…

-I can do that. I'm in better terms with Indra than you are, and okay, Auri's your fan but he knows me well. Go get some rest.

-I've been resting for the last two days…

-It doesn't qualify as rest just because you were in horizontal position. And are you seriously counting the time you spent on drugs and the moment your heart stopped as rest?

-The… The moment where what?" Octavia looked like a guilty kid caught in the act.

"-Well, yeah, that happened too. Not for too long, but… Yeah.

-Oh. Did… Was my mother the one who…

-Yeah.

-Oh. I guess that explains the overreaction, then.

-Hum, no. No, it doesn't. I mean, yeah, she's scared to death to lose you and so's Bellamy, but so am I, and Raven, and Monty, and obviously Lexa, and you don't see us losing our minds and chaining you up to a bed! It wouldn't even have helped! Oh, shit.

-What?" Clarke asked, her slight amusement at Octavia's irritation disappearing as soon as her friend's voice changed.

"-We've got company." Clarke raised her head in the direction Octavia indicated only to spot Bellamy, who had without a doubt spotted them as well. Octavia turned back to the entrance of the camp to signal Yalle and Nath to join them as Clarke braced herself for the coming confrontation. Just the sight of him exhausted her. He was once the one she could rely on the most and she had hurt him deeply, but she had honestly thought that they could work through it. Now she wasn't so sure. All she was sure about was that she was in no condition to deal with him. Reaching her, he considered the two guards for a second before meeting her eyes.

"-Do you really think you need those? I'm not gonna hurt you.

-Well your good intentions scare me as well." She was surprised to find out just how angry she was at him. He looked hurt.

"-I'm just trying to help you. Abby and I both, how can you doubt that?" He came closer only to be kept away by Nath stepping between the two of them. "-Can't you keep your pet out of this?" Bellamy protested. "-I'm trying to talk to you! I understand why you feel that way, but I was helping you, Clarke! I love you and I'm trying all I can to help you but you won't let me!

-No you're not!" She snapped, not doing anything to keep Nath away. "-I told you a hundred times what you could do to help, I begged you to help me and you keep coming after me and refusing to trust me! I don't care that you're in love with me, I did nothing for that and I'm sick of paying for it while trying to spare your feelings! It's not up to you to play the knight in shining armor and rescue me or I don't know what it is you think you're doing! I don't need your love or protection! I just need you to man up and do your job like everyone else, and I hope you listened to me this time because this is the last minute I'll ever waste trying to get the best out of you." She turned to her guards. "-Take him out of my sight".

The two grounders grabbed him and he interrupted his protestations only when she addressed him again.

"-Nath is a trustworthy and loyal warrior, not a pet. I don't want to see you again until you're ready to apologize to us both."

She didn't wait for an answer before turning back to leave; Octavia hung around just long enough to order Nath and Yalle to take Bellamy away for the time being, before speeding up to catch up with Clarke.

"-So that went better than I thought," she said, getting a tired smile out of Clarke.

"-Do you think I should have been… nicer?

-What? No! He needs to think about what he's done! Don't worry, he'll come around eventually. He's just… You know, when he was fifteen, he got in a big fight with our mother and spent the next three months not talking to her, and that was in the smallest life space you've ever seen, so imagine the ambiance. He ranted about it like every time I talked to him, but after a while, he finally stopped being a complete idiot and figured out he was at least in for half of the blame. He'll get there this time too, he's just not really fast. Are we going back to Yara's?

-That depends, are you sure you can handle Indra, Auri and Eris?

-Clarke." Octavia's offended tone made Clarke slightly smile again.

-Okay, then. I guess I could use a nap."

She definitely could, she thought while crossing the snowy camp to the lake. She had only been up few hours but it had worn her out all the same.

Yara was already organizing the evacuation of her people, but she took the time to welcome Clarke back and ask her about her meeting with Sarita. She cut the questions short when she saw how exhausted Clarke was, and let her crash in the room where she had spent the night. She had a last talk with Octavia about Indra and Auri, made her promise to come wake her up if anything happened. She took her coat and boots off -the leather top and pants she was wearing were soft enough to be used as night clothes- and crawled to bed, burying herself in the mattress and lifting the furs to her chin.

Then, she stayed staring at the wall, all idea of sleep replaced by the realization that Lexa would be there in less than twenty-four hours and the one that she couldn't believe that. She had heard Lexa, but her memories of the last days were so confused, and it was too –it was the very illustration of the concept too good to be true. She swallowed back a sob. There was a tense feeling in her chest, a mix of fear and anticipation that she hated. Although she was okay with the fear; it was becoming an old friend by now, but the anticipation… that seed of happiness only announced greater pain. She knew that. She knew that chances for the both of them to make it out of this war alive were thinner by the second. Nothing she knew could make that hope go away though, nothing could make her less impatient to see Lexa. When she finally fell asleep, she had good dreams for the first time in months.

She woke up with a startle, the room darker than when she had last closed her eyes and Octavia was sleeping on the other bed of the room. She stirred in her sleep, disturbed by the noise, and Clarke went silent, hoping she could spare her friend's sleep. She slowly grabbed her shoes and coat, tiptoed her way to the door, and waited to be outside the room to put them on.

There were people up in the building, she could hear their voices coming from another room –this place was bigger than she thought- so she took that direction, which led her to walk in on Yara conferring with few of her people –the one in charge of her warriors and two women who Clarke knew were her advisors- and Indra, Eris, Auri and Sarita's second, Sojo –Clarke didn't know if he was as welcomed by the spirits as his leader; she had only seen him outside of the tent, but surely he had to be if he was Sarita's apprentice and possible successor.

The three chiefs, the second and the advisors rose when she entered the room, and Yara imitated them, a second later, but her rise wasn't as rushed. It wasn't the sign of obedience that it was for the other grounders, but more of a non-mandatory mark of respect. Clarke gestured them to sit down, which they did at the exception of Yara, who stood still, greeted her, and followed with a bunch of information about their nocturnal meeting. They had accepted the necessity of the evacuation, but the shared feeling was that they needed to know where exactly they were going. The silver-eyed made the lands around them anything but safe, some of the Wastelands were still active –and clearly, nothing stopped Alie to create new ones- and who knew where the men in white armors could come from?

"-We won't be leaving this place for good," Clarke told them. "-As you point out, we have no guarantee to find another territory not crawling with silver-eyed. Our scientists" –Well, Monty- "-are determining right now at what distance from the core of the Wasteland we'll be safe. As you know by now, the Commander is to come back today, and her team has what we need to contain the core, so when it explodes here, we'll send a team from the safe place we'll be at, and we'll deactivate the core. Most of what we built here will be destroyed, but we'll still be alive this place will still be ours."

Yara approved her with a slight smile; the others appeared to agree as well –and if they didn't, she figured, she could probably force them to do whatever she wanted. She wondered if it was wrong that this idea was somehow thrilling. She wasn't supposed to enjoy power, she knew that much, but everything was so much easier when people actually listened to her!

"-So we begin to evacuate as soon as the Commander is back?" Indra asked.

"-Not at the minute. She'll give the order, but I don't think we'll leave before midday or this afternoon. There's a lot to organize. The four of you have advance on the other clans, so you can start preparing, and I want you to take Sky people with you when we leave. There are a lot of civilians here, and I think everything will be easier if they are looked after by your warriors."

The meeting went on for maybe half an hour before Clarke let the chiefs go back to their camps. Octavia had woken up and joined them, and Clarke sent her warn Kane –he wasn't the type to panic and would most likely be useful to handle the Sky people evacuation.

Left alone with Yara, she got a little uncomfortable at the way the princess was looking at her.

"-What is it?"

-I didn't realize the evacuation was only temporary.

-Well I didn't have much time to come up with a plan, and we can't just run away and hope for a miracle. Don't you agree? If you have a suggestion…

-It's not that. I only am worried about Alie's reactions.

-How so?

-You escape her and she tries to kill us all in one strike. Who's to say what she'll try if all of us escape and defy her?"

Clarke started to shrug, then stopped at mid-motion, reasoning that it might send the wrong impression, one of carelessness, when what she wanted to express was more powerlessness.

"-I know, but what else can we do? This isn't a rhetorical question, really, if you have another idea…

-No. You're right, this is the best, possibly the only thing to do, but…

-She was to kill or turn us all anyway," Clarke insisted. Yara looked a little off and she wondered if the princess really agreed with her, regardless of what she had just said.

"-I'm convinced, Clarke," Yara replied. "-It's…" She raised a timid look at Clarke, who waited for the rest, somewhat intrigued by this attitude. "-Would you lose respect for me if I admitted to be afraid?" She kept watching Clarke as though she expected her to fire her in the second, and all Clarke could do was staring blankly at her, processing the fact that the girl was basically asking her permission to be scared at the brink of the end of the world.

"-I would take you for one hell of an idiot if you weren't," she finally answered with a grin.

"-Then I must be exceptionally smart," Yara muttered.

-You and me both," Clarke smiled.

"-Ah. Even the Sky Princess who commands death is afraid?

-The Sky Princess has been scared since the day she left space," Clarke mumbled. Yara's tease was usual, but she could feel the fear behind it, the plea for reassurance. As though she had any to give. "-But what can we do but keep going?" Yara's smile steadied a little.

"-So when Lexa is back and the Wasteland a solved matter, how do we proceed?

-I'm not sure yet. It seemed that we can cross the South Nation out of the equation, so… We wait for Lexa's information on the situation all across the Coalition, and we adjust our attack plan to it, I suppose. And we start moving our forces in position." Yara nodded her approval.

"-Octavia told me that Lexa would be there at dawn. I would be there to welcome her, but I figured you might want some time alone with her?"

Clarke's cheeks suddenly felt ridiculously hot as Yara's smile turned into a mischievous smirk.

"-Actually that would be… Yeah," she managed to articulate rather than stuttering in embarrassment. "-For mere questions of logistic.

-Of course.

-For organization is all.

-I haven't said anything else."

…..

It was a cold, cold day like every one since the beginning of the winter and between the snow hiding the ground and the millions of snowflakes whirl winding from the sky, the landscape was drowned in white. From the door of the camp where she stood, Clarke could barely see the line of trees. She could barely see the rise of the sun, the coming of dawn.

She heard Octavia shiver and try to warm herself by rubbing her own arms. She stayed still. She had been shaking all the way through the camp, but now that she was waiting there, firmly standing just outside of the camp, she was so focused that she was feeling everything from far away –everything but the anguish. The expected excitement wasn't there instead she could only fear that time would keep passing without any sign from Lexa, that the sun would keep rising and that she would still be there, waiting for nothing, as it would reach the top of the sky.

They hadn't had any contact with Lexa's team since the previous when she was meeting with Sarita, which worried her although it wasn't objectively that weird. Lexa had transmitted the information that couldn't wait, she didn't need to tell them more before her return... And knowing this didn't stop Clarke to be afraid. It just seemed too good to...

Her heart skipped a beat before starting to pump liquid fire in her veins again, and she felt like her body just got impossibly heavy, sticking her feet to the ground when she perceived the first move at the tree line. She doubted her sight only a second, before even the thick snowfall couldn't hide the form of a horse and its rider anymore.

«-They're here, » Octavia said from behind her as though there was the slightest chance Clarke could have missed it. She didn't answer. She was too busy looking at every one of the rider coming out of the woods, desperately searching for the red spot of the Commander's sash. Almost a dozen riders were already on sight when she finally saw her –too far away still to see her face but the red fabric was all that she could see in the whiteness of the morning.

Octavia stepped next to her and put a hand on her arm, making her realize that she was trembling like a leaf.

« -It's okay, Clarke. She's here- just get it together before Grounders see you like that.

Clarke released a breath she didn't know she had been holding and steadied herself, straightening up, her eyes never leaving Lexa - a few handful of seconds and she could now discern her features, recognizable if not distinct yet – and it was her, it really was her and for an instant, all of Clarke's worries were brushed away by a wave of pure bliss.

Just a little more time and she was able to make eyes contact with Lexa –the girl's look was locked on her as well. Finally, she started walking towards her –never taking the conscious decision to do so; her feet had lifted themselves off the ground and she barely had enough control to stop herself from running to Lexa. Lexa who was dismounting her horse after having passed before the other riders –for a split second, it seemed like she wasn't completely solid on her feet, but she steadied herself, or maybe it had just been an impression due to the impressive rapidity with which she had jumped to the ground.

Clarke's feet brutally decided to stop their progression and she froze only few meters away from Lexa –she wondered, as her breath shortened and her vision seemed to shrink to include only one thing, only the girl in front of her, if she wasn't about to have a panic attack or something resembling. The next seconds she stayed stuck where she stood, barely able to breathe –until Lexa crossed the distance between the two of them and as she reached her, attempted to smile to her- but this was a weak, almost scared smile, and Clarke realized that Lexa didn't know how to interpret her reaction. Something clicked –or broke- inside her, and she was the one who closed the distance between them when Lexa stopped moving to her. She didn't think. She didn't think, forgot all about politics and appearances, and threw her arms around Lexa's neck, without a word. She immediately felt Lexa's arms close on her back, and the girl's body relaxed for a second and tensed again in something that furiously resembled a sob –a contained, restrained one. She felt cries mount in her throat and when Lexa, after a sorely short embrace, stepped back, outside of her arms, Clarke could barely hold back tears.

"-You're back" she muttered, her voice huskier than ever, her arm still holding Lexa's. Lexa slightly nodded, a small smile passing on her face as she looked at her.

"-As promised." She raised her free hand to Clarke's face, and came caressing, lightly, her cheek -swiping out a tear, Clarke realized. "-Don't cry, Clarke. You'll ruin those beautiful, beautiful warpaints.

Lexa's eyes were boring into hers, as if drinking her in, making all too clear that it wasn't the warpaints she was calling beautiful. The riders were all closer now though and Clarke had no choice but to maintain the appearance of an official meeting between two leaders.

"-Octavia's idea." Lexa nodded again.

"-A very good one."

Clarke smiled against her will, couldn't help a grin to light up her face, which earned her a smile from Lexa – a real, full smile, the likes of which she had never seen on Lexa's face before.

"-Are you all right? What happened to your hand?"

Lexa looked at her own hand as if she needed to see it to remember there was something wrong with it.

"-It's nothing. I'm fine. Are you? When we talked…

-That was not my best moment… It's not brilliant, but it seemed worst that day than it really is. I'm sorry you had to hear any of it.

-Don't be. You're not the one who should be sorry."

They were interrupted by a happy shout, and Clarke smiled at the sight of few Sky teenagers exiting the camp and racing to the grounder team –all friends of Zeke and Leal. Looking at them, she missed the split second during which Lexa tensed, and when she turned back at her, the Commander had already regained hold on herself?

"-The infirmary is ready for those of your people who need medical attention, Octavia gave the info to my mother. I… I thought we could talk in private in the Council room before meeting with everyone –we have a big meeting in the morning- but if you want to accompany them to the infirmary to make sure…

-It's okay. I've seen your healers work, I know they will do the best they can."

Clarke nodded. "-Good. Come with me, then. We have a lot to talk about."

Lexa stared right into her eyes, still not letting go of her arm. "-Yes. We do."

They parted as Clarke turned to Octavia and asked her to get to the infirmary with the Grounder team; Lexa addressed few sentences in triguedasleng to Maykl, and the warrior turned to the rest of the grounders to yell orders at them. One of the riders, a young green-eyed girl, led her horse next to Clarke and Lexa –at a safe distance, Clarke noted, as to not impose herself, but still close enough.

"-Will you need an escort, Heda?" She asked, managing to give the impression she was looking up at Lexa even though she was on the back of a horse and Lexa standing on the ground feet below her.

"-I won't. Go to the infirmary and have the Sky healers take a look at your injury."

The girl –Clarke was certain she had never seen her before but she still looked oddly familiar- seemed about to argue and Lexa shot her a stern look, as a warning. It was the way the rider lowered her head, showing a willful submission, that triggered the memory Clarke was looking for. She reminded her of Jak, from her features to her posture, and she wondered whether she was making stuff up or if this girl could really be the sister he had talked about. He did say she knew Lexa, and the girl seemed in quite close terms with the Commander. Her mind was taken away from those considerations when Lexa faced her again.

"-Shall we go, then?"

…..

It took them few minutes to reach the Council room, during which they didn't spoke a word. Not that they had already went out of things to say; on the contrary, Clarke felt that if they started talking now, they would still be standing in the snow in everyone's sight in a full hour. So she led an equally silent Lexa to the room, made her come in, locked the door behind them before she could finally have her to herself. At least for now. It was still without a word that she went to hug her. She held her with all the relief of feeling a constant emptiness finally being filled, as strongly as she had ached for her presence every day, pouring in the embrace everything she couldn't voice yet. This time, Lexa made no move to break free from her arms, embracing her tightly.

"-Thank you," Clarke finally muttered.

-For what?" Nothing more than a whisper.

"-Keeping your promise. Being alive. Being here."

Lexa moved even closer from her, nuzzling her head against her hair so lightly that Clarke barely felt it –but enough to smile at the gentle touch, at the way Lexa was asking for a more intimate contact without imposing it.

She raised a hand, leaving Lexa's back, to come stroke her hair, as she realized that the other girl needed this maybe as much as she did.

"-Are you okay?" A nod against her shoulder. She started to step back from Lexa, hesitated, and before they parted pressed a light kiss on her hair.

She took a step back to check on Lexa, not liking what she had in front of her so much. The Commander was alive, all right, and not visibly hurt except for her bandaged hand, but she was much thinner than Clarke remembered her, and her skin alarmingly pale.

"-You look sick. Can I…" She went to check her temperature before really waiting for her authorization, but the girl didn't move. She felt her heart skip a beat when she touched her skin –slightly hotter than it should have been. "-Lexa, you have a fever, did you… Have you been in contact with the cores without protection?

-No. No, don't worry. I've been a little sick, that's all, and it's almost over. Nothing to do with the silver.

-Are you sure? Have you had a healer check on you?

-Clarke." Lexa grabbed her hand, pulling it away from her forehead. "-I am fine. Really. I'm okay."

Clarke took a breath and let the words sink in for a handful of seconds before nodding. "-Will you let me check on your hand though? I'm sure this bandage needs to be changed."

A hint of smile played on Lexa's lips as she acquiesced, and she let Clarke take her to one of the chairs and get a first aid kit stowed in one of the closets.

Clarke carefully untied the bandage from her hand, noticing that Lexa didn't even flinch, which reassured her a little, and she saw that Zeke had done a good job with the brace –it was tight and straight, probably as good as it could have been given the material he must have had.

"-Are they both broken?" She asked to a silent, thoughtfully staring at her Lexa, who nodded. "-What happened?"

"-My hand got caught in the wheel of a cart." Clarke couldn't help but wince at the idea –and at the sight of the back of Lexa's hand, where a nasty tearing in the flesh had been stitched. "-It barely hurts anymore," Lexa said as to reassure her. Clarke raised an eyebrow in a skeptical look.

"-Hm. And what exactly was your hand doing in the vicinity of a cart wheel?"

"-I was…" Lexa's voice faltered. "-We had to cross a river and I let myself be caught by the stream. The horse panicked and stuck me under the cart. I was trying to get out and got… Clarke, I was underwater barely a minute, I was never in danger," She quickly added when the Sky girl stopped all move to look at her.

Clarke's look lingered on Lexa's face few seconds as she tried to chase the memory of the vision away. The girl's last phrase was a lie, and definitely not a small one, but she didn't care to call her on it. She nodded at her.

"-Okay, I'm going to clean this up and make you a better brace –not that this one isn't fine, but that was clearly made with "what's-to-hand"- and it's not the most practical for you. It's gonna hurt, but hopefully not too much. How long ago was it?"

Lexa thought about it as Clarke prepared everything she needed. "-Less than a week, but I can't recall exactly. The last few days were… messy.

-Because of our last talk?" Clarke worried. Lexa shook her head.

"-No."

She added nothing and Clarke was surprised to see her close –she could practically see walls being put up around her. It reminded her that Lexa had seemed on the verge of crying just few minutes ago and she wondered what it was that the Commander wouldn't speak about. If there was something that she was upset about, beyond the obvious –invasion, war coming, her people dying… That was more than enough, but Lexa as she knew her wouldn't let herself be emotional over it. And yet she was hurting, and holding it back.

She lifted Lexa's hand and turned it over to kiss her palm before starting to tend it –she pretended not to see the look Lexa gave her.

"-Clarke…" Lexa finally voiced after a long silence. Clarke briefly looked up to assure her she was listening, while continuing her task –she didn't want to cause pain to Lexa, which meant she had to be really gentle and quite slow. "-I believe there are things we need to talk about.

-You have no idea, but we'll discuss everything at great length with the Assembly in the morning." Looking up again, she saw Lexa's look change; it looked like light had been snuffed out of it and the Commander mask fell back on in a split second.

"-All right. May I know what the danger you talked about is before that?"

"-Lexa. We are gonna talk about… About us. I promise. It's just… We're short in time right now, and I don't want to do that between doors. It's too important."

Lexa nodded, and Clarke was once again amazed by the understanding she showed.

"-And about said danger… A core is going to explode in Camp Jaha. I don't know exactly when, but we don't have much time." She kept going as Lexa's eyes widened in realization. "-The suits of the Overseas men had a component Raven and Wick used to manufacture containers for the cores, but we're out, so we're going to have to use one of yours after it explodes, to stop it all before this place becomes another Wasteland. We're going to announce it to the chiefs of the clan today, and order evacuation. I know it's sudden, but I didn't get the warning that long ago.

"-We encountered Overseas men few days ago. We kept their suits and weapons. If Raven can work fast enough, we can…" She flinched as Clarke tied her fingers to the new brace.

"-Sorry. Well… As great as it is, I don't think we can make new ones in time for this, but this will definitely be useful for other Wastelands.

-Were you warned in one of your dreams?

-Yeah. Two days ago, Alie thought I was hers for good," Lexa looked even more pained at those words than she had been by her injury. "-She thought it was safe to let me know. Also, even though I'm not sure what to do with this, I think the City of Lights, the real one, is in space.

-What?" She almost enjoyed the surprise on Lexa's face. "-Are you telling me we need to go to space to stop her?

-God I hope not! I don't know if Alie herself is based there or on her island, actually. Hopefully, the City of Lights is only the place she hopes we all end up in." She had just finished with the brace, and was about to disinfect the flesh wound before bandaging when she stopped talking. Instead of doing that, she had an irrepressible access of laughter, which made Lexa perplex.

"-What is it? Clarke?

-I'm sorry, it's…" She tried without success to stop. "-I'm just picturing having to bring all of your army, all the chiefs, in space… I'm sorry, it's not that funny, but… It's just nervous, really," she managed to speak by chunks of sentence.

"-I can see the comical aspect of the idea, though," Lexa spoke calmly, at Clarke's surprise.

"-I thought mockery was not the product of a strong mind?" Clarke asked, trying all she could to get serious again –Lexa's more and more visible amusement wasn't helping.

-We all have our weaknesses, Clarke."

Lexa had spoken very softly. Clarke thought that to anyone else, it would have seemed like she was just continuing the conversation on the same subject, and that she was the only one who could know what the Commander really meant. The only one who would ever see Lexa smile with so much shyness. Who would ever know how much it meant for Lexa to put herself in such a vulnerable situation.

This put a stop to her laugh, as she her eyes met Lexa's again. The other girl looked almost scared, now, waiting for her to react one way or another.

"-This isn't weakness, Lexa. To be feeling…. What we both do, it's not weakness."

Lexa's eyes grew even wider and her lips parted, but no sound came out as she watched her. And her look was enough to overwhelm Clarke. She was nothing of a Commander in this instant; she was only Lexa, letting her walls completely down, putting at her mercy the heart she had spent years protecting from everything, silently begging her not to hurt her but ready to be anyway if that was what Clarke wanted.

She looked away –maybe a little brutally. "-There's something… Lexa, there's something you have to understand if… Before we even talk about anything." Lexa stayed silent, as a way to tell her to go on.

"-If everything goes how we want it to go, we should be able to defeat Alie soon. But I don't think…I don't think I'll be able to fight her long enough. It was really, really close last time, and…"

She was interrupted by Lexa pulling her closer from her with her free hand, pulling her in a tight embrace and muttering in her ear as softly as is telling a secret.

"-Don't be afraid of her. If she does this to you, I'll find a way to undo it. If she tries to hurt you, I'll destroy her. As long as I'm alive, no one will get to you. I'm here, now, and I'll protect you from harm till my dying day."

Clarke buried her face in Lexa's neck, realizing only at this moment how much she had already accepted the idea of her own imminent death. Raven had been right; she had given up, not on her people, not on this war, but on herself. She had good reasons to, though; she couldn't see any way to keep fighting Alie.

Yet, she believed –there was no reason to, Lexa didn't know what it was to face Alie, she had broken promises before, she was making a promise impossible to keep- Lexa's words. She found in it something she had stopped feeling long ago.

Hope.


	30. Chapter 30

« -Yara should be there soon. She knows about the Wasteland and the evacuation, so her people are already prepped. She told me... She said you were friends? »

Lexa considered her new brace and bandage, slightly bending her fingers, something she hadn't been able to do with the old one, to test it. « -We were. A long time ago.

-Did something happened?

-We were children and we grew up, that's all. I haven't seen her in years.

-But she still thinks of you as a friend. Her all family does, according to what she said.

-Maybe, » Lexa said, « -but that is secondary. What matters is that they think of me as the Commander. It seems to still be the case.

-As far as I can tell, they're actually amongst the most loyal of your people. I wouldn't say the same about every one of your clan leaders.

-Did any of them go against my orders? » Lexa worried. « -If so, they'll be punished as fitted. Tell me the names of those who disobeyed me.

-It won't be necessary, it's been taken care of. But I'm glad you're here to deal with them yourself, that's all I'm saying.

-Taken care of? By whom? Did the other chiefs stop them? »

Clarke couldn't help but snort at the idea. « -I wish! No, I had to step up. I, hum, have been doing a lot of politic lately. I had help from some of them, though. Auri is as loyal to you and I as can be, and…

-Step up? Did they defy you?

-Some of them did and long story short, we came to an agreement. And again, I had help. Apparently the Spirits of your people like me or something, so that helped too...

-You've met with Sarita? » Lexa's surprise reminded Clarke of the reaction the chiefs had had when the Spirit leader had supported her. Just as it was to them, it seemed to be a news of importance to the Commander.

« -Yes. Met, talked, and apparently went on a Spirit trip of some kind. Which makes me think I meant to ask you about this. What the hell are those Spirits? Did you... When you first met her, did you go under her tent too? How was it for you? »

Lexa's expression slowly went from surprise to an incredulous smile.

« -Clarke, the Spirits welcomed you? You could stay in her tent with her?

-Yes, but again, I have no idea of what is means, nor that is was so great... Although I'm glad it pleases you that much, » she ended with a teasing smile.

« -It really is, yes. It's a complicated thing to explain, but...

-See, I at least got that. Also, before you go and start to punish people for speaking about it, half of your chiefs are convinced you and I are really friendly. But don't worry, it won't put me in danger. One thing I managed is to make sure they don't think going after me would be any easier than going directly after you. And apparently my people think that too, which is annoying for all other reasons. What else is there... Right, South Nation might as well have been wiped out already for all we know, despite what Yara says about being certain that Wolf will come back, but now that you're here, we're ready to send our army in position. As soon as we're done with Alie trying to fry us all, that is. Travelling by waters, we can have men on position near to every one of her bases within three weeks, even in the South Nation territory and Raven used the radios we stole from the Overseas Men to get us our own long-distance radio. If we get to the sea-city, we can supervise the attacks from there, and actually be with the army that will take on Alie's main base, the island where she kept her prisoners.

"-Wait, go to the sea-city? What about our people here?

-Well, my people will be under Kane's care –I was thinking of taking Octavia with me, and there is no way I'm letting Bellamy in charge now... And most of your people won't even be there anymore by then, they'll be in position for attack.

-Speaking of Bellamy, what are your intentions about him?

-What do you mean?

-How do you intend to punish him?

-Oh," Clarke started to breathe again. For an instant, she had thought that Lexa's question was regarding what happened between her and Bellamy –should she talk about that to Lexa, at some point? Whatever the situation, it seemed like a mood-killer, but if she was to learn it anyway from someone else… "-I haven't really thought about punishing him, honestly.

-But you have to! You cannot let an attack against you go unpunished!

-Okay, let's not get over our heads. He didn't attack me, he did what he thought was best. Bad judgement, sure, but it's not like he was trying to hurt me.

-Why are you defending him? He incapacitated you, held you captive against your will!

-Hey, don't get mad…" Clarke tried to prevent the girl's outburst, but in truth she was probably few days too late for that.

"-I am mad!" Lexa growled. "-What he did to you… If we had not put a stop to it, you might still be unconscious on that bed! And what kind of idiot forces to sleep someone endangered by their own dreams? He might as well have handed you to Alie on a plate!"

She should have realized it sooner, but it only struck Clarke at this instant that Lexa's anger was mostly fueled by fear, and that during the sleepless nights and days when she had been riding to the camp, she had probably been obsessing about this.

"-I'm sorry," she said softly, taking Lexa's hand in hers. "-I'm sorry you worried so much.

-You have nothing to be sorry about," Lexa protested. "-I'm not mad at you, Clarke…" Her distressed expression hit Clarke hard.

"-I know. Look, I got where you're coming from, really. I'm angry about it too, but what would you have me do? I'm not gonna lock up my friend and my mother in jail for trying to help me."

Lexa's jaw clenched; Clarke could see she was refraining angry protestations. She took her time to answer, and when she did, it was on a pleading tone.

"-If you do nothing, it will just show your people they can disobey you without consequences.

-My people don't work like that, Lexa. And not everyone needs to know what happened anyway. I won't let Bellamy or my mother the occasion to pull something like that again, isn't it what matters?

-Maybe, but how will you make sure of this?

-Well, I'm definitely not going to my mother if I need to go to the infirmary, and I won't… I'll keep Yalle and Nath around at all time, I guess.

-Who are they?

-Oh, warriors from the River Clan. Auri lends them to me whenever I need an escort.

-Do you need more? I can assign you any warrior…

-No, Lexa," she smiled. "-I'm as safe as can be given the situation."

Lexa considered her a handful of seconds before nodding, reluctantly accepting Clarke's decision.

"-So, back to the Spirits," Clarke resumed, trying to light up Lexa's mood with a cheerful tone. "-I really wanna know more. When did you first go under that tent? How did it went?" Lexa had a half-smile.

"-It wasn't in a tent," she said, "-In the heart of the territory of the Spirits, there is a cave closed by three doors, one of stone, one of wood, one of cloth. This is where the voices of the spirits speak the loudest. I went there when I was thirteen. It is required of every Commander to visit the Spirit Clan before taking charge, even back when the Coalition was nothing more than a dream." She paused, leaving Clarke silently waiting for the rest. Lexa's tone was somewhat distant and her next sentence caught Clarke off guard. "-Costia went with me.

-She could… Breathe in there too?

-No. She nearly choked and one of Sarita's apprentices tried to take her back outside. She didn't let him. All the time I stayed there, she stayed too. This is what I remember the most. The spirits, I heard them well some times, but this first time, what I heard was Costia who just wouldn't leave me there alone, the sound of her trying to breathe. She was almost passed out at the end, I helped her outside and the second we crossed the last door it went the opposite way –she could breathe again but she had to help me stay standing. I used to think… For years I thought that whatever her fate was supposed to be, someone strong enough to impose her will to the Spirits could also control that."

Lexa seemed to snap out of some kind of second state when she stopped talking. Clarke, still holding her hand, had started to rub her skin in small caresses and she gave a gentle squeeze when Lexa's voice died.

"-Thank you," she muttered. "-For sharing that."

Lexa raised her eyes to meet hers. "-Was it the answer you were looking for?" She asked in a slightly husky voice that didn't quite sound like hers.

"-Yes, actually. Sarita said that the spirits welcomed you and I alike and I wanted to know what that meant.

-The spirits welcomed you…" Lexa echoed as though she couldn't completely believe it.

"-It really is a big deal, huh?

-Yes. More than you know." Clarke smiled to her again. She still didn't know much more about those spirits, but is seemed to really please Lexa, and that was enough to make her happy about it. Who knew that the favor of the spirits could be used as a pick-up line among grounders?

"-What is making you laugh this time?" Lexa asked, her voice already more lively.

"-Nothing… Tell me… Tell me about you, your expedition. You went all the way to Polis? How's the situation in the rest of your lands?"

Lexa shrugged a shiver away. "-It's bad. Most of the big cities have fallen and the survivors fled in search of safe places. I sent warriors to create and protect places like that, and Polis still stands strong, but between those who turned, those who died and all the lands corrupted by the Wastelands, I fear the next years. Many clans won't be able to provide for themselves, let alone for the rest of the Coalition. Of course, less people will have to live off the remaining lands, there are victims by thousands, but… Do you know what will happen to the silver-eyes when we destroy Alie? Will they die along with her or will we have to kill them afterwards?

-I can't say for sure, but in all logic, they should die when she does, or at least stop attacking people. They only accomplish her will, so…

-Good. All in all, we helped secure a lot of zones during those two months, but it will only be temporary if we don't put an end to all of this. If it isn't too late already.

-Lexa! How can you… It's just a matter of weeks, now!

-Yes. You're right."

There was that broken something again in Lexa's voice and expression, as a wound right below the surface.

She finished cleaning the wound on Lexa's hand and wrapped it in a new bandage –not a rough piece of fabric as the previous one, but an adhesive and sterile one. Neither of them spoke a word as she proceeded and there was something weird about that silence. Lexa seemed off again and it was starting to alarm her. She never knew the Commander to just zone out right in the middle of a discussion. She checked the girl's temperature again after letting go of her hand but found it sensibly the same.

"-I'm okay, Clarke," Lexa insisted.

"-You don't look okay. When was the last time you slept? Or ate?

-You're the one to talk," the Commander muttered under her breath, before speaking the rest out loud. "-And you keep talking about everything but yourself. Did Alie leave you alone since the last time we talked?"

Clarke's first reaction, conditioned by the habits of the last few months, was to lie and pretend everything was all right. "-She did…" And then she realized that Lexa was worriedly waiting for an answer, without the slightest trace of defiance on her face and that she was about to look at her in the eyes and lie. "-No. She showed me –the night when Octavia and Lincoln took me to Yara's place, she showed me what the camp would look like after the explosion. Like few days after, there was that… silver thing growing all under the ground.

-Did she try to…

-Turn me? I don't think she can just yet. It's like the first time I was given the antidote, you remember, I had those dreams but they weren't dangerous in the beginning. Another reprieve, I guess. I found out that those dreams always begin with a headache, so that acts as a warning, and morphine –it's a really strong painkiller- stops them from happening. But I can't take too much of it, it gets dangerous in high doses. Sarita had… Something she gave me few weeks ago and it made the dreams disappear completely for a while but she thinks it won't help anymore, so… I'm not sure how much time I have. And when she tried last time, I didn't have time to do anything so maybe it just…" She hesitated. She didn't want to upset Lexa but now that she was finally speaking about it she felt like she couldn't stop spilling everything out. Like every word was a weight taken off her chest, a weight that Lexa seemed willing to receive. "-I really thought this was it. I kept thinking that I was gonna die without… Seeing you again. She tried to make me believe you were dead. Showed me things. I think she's capable of feelings, you know. At least hate and anger. And I'm confident she personally hates me.

-I think so too. She talked to me when I was in Polis…

-What?" Clarke interrupted her, unable to keep the panic away from her voice. "-You said you weren't in contact with the silver!

-It wasn't like that. She talked through the cores. I think they're part of her, as the silver.

-I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The scientists said the silver was just helping her to…

-I don't claim to know what it is made of, but I have seen the silver-eyed fusion with the silver of the Wastelands, the cores expand to the size of lakes, and I can tell this isn't just some kind of poison like the red of the Mountain Men. It is Her. Every bit of silver in their eyes, every drop of it below the ground and every one of the cores we boxed is Her."

Clarke lowered her head and she was blinking tears away when she raised it. Lexa realized too late what her words meant to the Sky girl. She didn't have time to try and comfort her before loud knocks were heard on the other side of the door. Her heart sank at the noise that announced the end of her short time alone with Clarke. They were never gonna have all the time Lexa would have wanted, of course, but so little, just a brief parenthesis… She had barely had time to see her.

"-Talk to you later?" The Sky Girl asked, standing up. Lexa rose with her, her uninjured hand still clasped in Clarke's.

"-Of course." Clarke let go of her hand and Lexa saw her own sadness mirrored on the girl's face –but as she thought they were going to part, Clarke stepped forward to brush a kiss on her cheek. Her lips felt cold against Lexa's fever-hot skin.

"-I missed you," Clarke whispered –her breath tickled Lexa. She wanted to answer, very much, but the words stayed stuck in her throat long enough for Clarke to stop waiting for them, and she moved away to open the door as Lexa stayed immobile behind her. She forced herself to move, expecting Yara to be standing in the hallway. She was somewhat nervous at this thought. She had been close to her, to Dorian, even to Luna, before resolutely avoiding the sea-people for years. Close enough to immediately recognize Yara's voice on the radio few days ago and notice the ways it had changed, the ways it had stayed the same –but as she told Clarke, she hadn't seen any of them in years. What she didn't say was that she wasn't ready to.

However, it wasn't the Sea Princess the door opened on –instead was a pissed-off young sky girl with short hair who, as Lexa recalled, had been in Bellamy and Octavia's team during their very first encounter with the Overseas Men, when they had found the list of pictures. She was the girl –what was her name?- who hung out with Leal.

"-Keagan?" Clarke worried, thus answering Lexa's silent question. "-What's going on?

-I need to talk to her," The girl spat, darting a look at Lexa. Clarke frowns, concern letting place to perplexity.

"-That's not a good time, really. We're about to…

-I don't care!

-I take it this is about your friend Leal," Lexa said calmly, stepping before Clarke to be the one facing Keagan.

"-You're damn right it is! What's wrong with you? She's not even one of your people, you had no right to treat her that way!

-I had every right on her life!" Lexa roared, anger suddenly flaming in her chest as the vision of blood on the snow and horses fighting the stream flashed in front of her eyes. The girl involuntarily stepped back. "-I spared her and that is more than what she deserved according to every law of those lands!"

Keagan turned a furious face to Clarke. "-Are you just gonna let her hurt our people as it pleases her? Have you even seen Leal?

-No," Clarke answered, and Lexa less than liked the way the Sky princess was looking at her. She couldn't quite tell what it was –fear? Was Clarke afraid of her anger? "-What is this about?" She continued, her eyes travelling between Keagan and Lexa.

"-She hurt Leal! She went with her on that crazy dangerous trip to save her fucking people, she got hurt helping her, and all she did in return was hurt her! You let her walk in the snow with a bleeding wound, you hit her, you…

-I left her alive with nothing more than a scar.

-On her freaking face! With a scar that you left on her face!

-It'll serve well to remind her of what she did.

-She! Saved! Your! People!" Keagan yelled.

"-She killed more than can ever be saved!" Lexa's voice resounded in the metallic hallway and both sky girls gave her frightened looks. "-You have no idea of what she has done. What I did to her was nothing. You go and tell her to stay out of my sight from now on if she doesn't want to experience a more fitting punition."

The girl started another angry blurt before Clarke interrupted her. "-Keagan, let it go for now, please. We'll talk about that, but now is a really, really bad time.

-But she…" Clarke didn't say anything more, but her silence was as eloquent as a hundred of words. "-Ok…" Keagan reluctantly backed off. "-But you need to do something about this. Leal is... I've never seen her like that.

-Did you…" Clarke glanced at Lexa and started to question her the second after she closed the door on Keagan. There was that look in her eyes again and Lexa couldn't tell if it looked more like sadness or fear. "-Did you really hurt Leal?"

Lexa's jaw and fists clenched –hard. "-Yes.

-Why? What did she do?"

She didn't think she could get more tensed than she already was, but her body proved her wrong, her teeth gritted together so hard that it sent a flash of pain in her head. Even if she had wanted to talk about the Riverhead debacle, about her failure, she couldn't have uttered a word.

"-Lexa, what happened?" Clarke's voice wasn't angry or commanding; it was soft, and still was when after a silence she talked again. "-What are you not telling me?"

It wasn't fear that had haunted Clarke's look for the past minutes, Lexa realized, not fear of her as she had thought, but fear for her. Clarke was plain and simple worrying about her. She looked away from Clarke's eyes, briefly, somewhat wanting to spill everything on her just because of that look and she drew in a deep breath, not really knowing what she was gonna say next –which ended up being nothing, since, even if she had been getting better, ever since Riverhead, breathing was hard and deep breaths like this one always made her cough and practically choke. She tried to contain it, her chest shook by the coughing fit, and turned away from Clarke, forced to try and take another breath that brought her close to no air.

As she started to cough for real, unable to help herself, she felt Clarke's hand lightly put on her back, between her shoulder blades –there was a striking contrast between the pain that made her feel like her airways were being teared open and left bleeding and the softness of Clarke's touch. Pain reverberated in her chest and head as the Sky girl gently caressed her back, trying to ease it a little for her, to help her breathing get back to normal.

"-Easy, easy," she heard her mutter. She turned back to her, meaning to apologize as soon as her erratic breathing would let her, but Clarke froze when she faced her and started to say something that Lexa never heard –the lack of oxygen had been building up and a violent, disorientating vertigo took over, painting the world grey and blurry.

She only heard Clarke breathe her name before her body hit the other girl's; it took few seconds for her mind to clear enough to let her realize that she had fallen forward and that Clarke had caught her, her arms strongly holding her on her feet.

She tried to steady herself but another wave of dizziness hit her and her knees buckled again.

"-I's all right, I've got you. I've got you.

She let her eyes close, sinking deeper in the embrace. She awoke with a startle –it seemed that she had actually managed to fall asleep few seconds while standing and she berated herself for demonstrating that much weakness, even in her sick and tired state- as Clarke led her to one of the chairs and sat her.

-I'm sorry," she muttered, forcing herself to meet Clarke's eyes. The girl drew in a shaky breath before answering.

"-Right, you should be. How selfish of you and inconvenient for me that you're sick."

That was the last thing she expected to do but Lexa let out a small laugh. Clarke smiled back, looking slightly less worried, and went to get her a glass of water.

"-I'll postpone the meeting, I'll take you to the infirmary…

-No," Lexa protested, "-I'm fine. It's passed already.

-Lexa, you coughed blood!

-It's just because I coughed a lot these last days. My throat is irritated, nothing more.

-You clearly didn't hear yourself twenty seconds ago. How long has it been going on? What meds did Zeke put you on?

She thanked Clarke and sipped a little water before answering. "-Few days. He gave me some painkillers on the first days for my hand and an anti-infection thing," her face crinkled with disgust at the thought of the red decoction. "-That he got from the seaweed we use for wounds.

-Why not real antibiotics?

-We needed those for the injured warriors. We had a lot of wounded ones.

-Well you need it. The red seaweed is okay but not strong enough." She took the empty glass from Lexa's hands. "-Do you want some more?"

Lexa shook her head. She meant to stand up but Clarke didn't leave her time to do so. She knelt next to the chair, which brought her closer from Lexa's level, and took her hands in hers. Lexa looked up without any idea of what was going to follow. Clarke didn't really seem to know either though and none of them had the chance to find out since they were interrupted a second time by a knock on the door, firm but not as loud as Keagan's had been.

"-Must be Yara, this time," Clarke sighed as Lexa rose, and this time her guess was right.

Two warriors surrounded the Sea Princess, but Lexa's look landed directly on her. Her first thought was that Yara had changed; she had known her as a carefree and mischievous girl who wouldn't stay serious one minute more than what was absolutely necessary, nothing like the ambassador standing in front of her now. The impression lasted until Yara reciprocated her look and smiled, hesitantly stepping toward her. Of all the ways she could had saluted the Commander, she simply uttered her name.

Lexa raised her chin before answering in an effort to keep emotions away. "-Hello, Yara."

A shadow darkened Yara's look before the girl lost all hesitation and pulled her into a hug. She stiffened, her first instinct was to push her away, and then Yara talked to her in islandic, a language she hadn't heard in years.

"-How could you stay away so long, kinna ?

The word she called Lexa didn't exactly mean sister because Sea-people had a different sense of family than people of the lands but it was the closest approximation and Lexa suddenly felt both vulnerable and soothed, as if a wound she was so used to that she had forgotten about it had been healed. She closed her arms on the Sea Princess, briefly but strongly and let go to answer in the same language, which surprisingly flowed out of her mouth without difficulty even though it had been more than three years since she last spoke it.

"-I couldn't come back alone." There was a flash of sadness on Yara's face and Lexa could see there was much the girl wanted to say although she settled for "-We missed you," and she could feel how true it was, enough to get a faint smile out from her.

"-I missed you too. I just didn't know it." Didn't know either that she remembered islandic so well, or that Yara's scent would be enough to irresistibly make her think about the Sea-city more vividly than she had in years. The way the sun flashed on the endless water, the noise of the wood creaking in its constant fight with the waves, the way Costia used to laugh and blush every time Dorian would talk to her –and Lexa as well, to be honest, all the kids were smitten with the oldest princess and Yara used to be so jealous of her sister- those things and a myriad of others came back in the blink of an eye. She did miss it, but in a way she wasn't ready to face all of it already. Not ready to get proven to that after all this time, closure was still something of a dream and that the slightest thing was still enough to bring back the memory of her furious girl, and that it still hurt so much and it still was so unbelievable that she would have to live her life without Costia. It wasn't the same as talking about her to Clarke; Clarke had never known her, which made possible for Lexa to distance herself from it, but Yara… She was truly happy to see her though, more than she expected, but it hurt as if it just happened.

Yara smiled too, more widely than Lexa, and switched to English.

"-Have you been told about the… upcoming problem?

-Alie's attack here, yes. Are your people ready to leave?

-Of course. Ready to take our share of civilian with us too," Yara addressed those last words to Clarke who nodded.

"-Thank you. So, according to Monty's calculations, it should take us few hours to get to a really safe distance and since we don't know exactly when it's going to happen, we shouldn't waste time. The Clan leaders will be there any time now. Lexa, you'll need to make them understand how urgent this is."

….

From what Clarke had said, Lexa half expected the chiefs to jump at her throat –she said revolt had been dealt with but talk them out of it until Lexa's return wasn't the same as taming them. Despite this, as they entered the Council room they all saluted her, Yara and Clarke and took place around the table without a sign that they were going to do anything else than listen. Only Nia's look lingered on Clarke maybe a little longer than it should have; on the contrary, Wundar didn't look at her at all; granted, he was one eye down to do that, and why on Earth was one of her chiefs missing an eye and not daring to raise the remaining one at Clarke?

She took a brief look at the two other leaders. Yara's regal stance didn't surprise her although it showed a lot of growth from her since Lexa had last seen her; but Clarke…

Whenever Lexa had seen her deal with other leaders, she had always occupied the weak spot –looking up to Lexa for back-up, having to argue just to prove she had her place at the table. Clarke as she was seeing her now though, accepting the chief's salutations, her head held high and her look unwavering, seemed doubtless, fearless.

Truth be told, she seemed less afraid than Lexa was. Obedient as they looked, the chiefs were still gonna want to know how the people they had left behind were doing, what she had done to protect them. She didn't have to justify herself though, she thought in an attempt to shake her guilt. If she had left their armies dispersed all around the lands, most of them would have been dead by now and they could never have planned a real attack against Alie. It would have been even worse but the thought did nothing to attenuate the memory of the Wastelands, the cadavers of villages, the haunting looks of the silver-eyed.

Clarke looked at her and she understood that she wanted Lexa to speak first.

"-Sit," She ordered and the chiefs did –Yara and Clarke followed seconds later. "-Most of you have seen the Wastelands but you may not have seen how they appear. It starts with an explosion that kills almost every living thing around before corrupting the land around and turning the survivors into silver-eyed. This is what is going to happen right here. With the help of our allies, we are now able to strike back at our enemies and they know it. This only proves they are afraid of us, as they should be. They know we will come for them and they're trying to destroy us before we do. We won't let that happen."

She hadn't had the time to learn much about the evacuation plan but all it took for Clarke to take it from there was a quick look.

"-We need everyone to get to this zone as soon as possible, so you'll all have to get your people ready today. After the explosion, we'll be able to neutralize the Wasteland before it expands.

-We're going to run away when we have already spent months doing nothing?" The leader of the Farmer Clan intervened. Lexa looked up, about to scold him, but Clarke shot him a look that silenced him.

"-We're not running away. As soon as this is done, we'll move against the Overseas Men. Each of you will be given his orders and within few weeks your lands will be free of both enemy and radiations." The chief, Artaras, muttered apologies and spoke no more. "-The Sea people, the Farmer Clan and the Snow Clan will leave first. Get to the safe zone as fast as you can. Eagles Clan, Spirits Clan and the Nomads, you'll leave after them. Then Ice Nation and Mist Clan. River Clan, people of the Great Lakes and the clan of the Desert will follow and last, the Woods Clan, and people of the Grasslands and the ones of the Caves."

Lexa appreciated the seemingly random order; each group included at least one chief whose loyalty was certain.

It did take a while to give the specifics, but they wasted none in silencing dissidents again, and again, Lexa wondered what Clarke had possibly done to the chiefs to get so much obedience from them. What exactly did she call step up? They were all there, so she hadn't had one or two killed as examples… She promised herself to find out what had happened as soon as she could. All she could say for now was that whatever Clarke had done, it had worked; the meeting was over as quickly as they could have hoped. Leaving her with one logistic question, though.

"-And when do we leave?" She finally asked Clarke, after every chief, and Yara, had left the room.

-Last. My people –the civilians- will leave along with your army, but my soldiers and scientists will be with us. You'll take the warriors you brought from Polis, it's…" Clarke interrupted her sentence when Lexa's brows arched. "-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to order you around. I just kinda took the habit.

-I can see that.

-Lexa, I'm really…

-It's quite all right, Clarke. Go on." It really was. She couldn't help to love this –Clarke's confidence was new and amazing to witness.

"-All the patient in the infirmary will leave with the first group, so if you want…

-What was that?" She asked at the incomprehensible mumble in which Clarke's sentence had ended.

"-I said if you want that girl lieutenant of yours around, you should send for her, 'cause she'll be leaving with them soon otherwise.

Now this was about to become uncomfortable, Lexa thought. Clarke was about to ask her something, she could see it, and what would she answer if she asked about her relationship with Shaïra?

"-She's Jak's sister, isn't she? Derna's second?

-Yes." She answered, somewhat ashamed that she hadn't thought of that rather than to her… thing. Clarke gave her a miserable look.

"-Should I talk to her? Does she know how he…

-I told the new Mist leader when I last met him. I expect he told her. I think I'll send her back to him, at least for the evacuation. She is his second, after all.

-'M pretty sure she'd rather be yours though." Lexa's eyes widened. She couldn't tell if she was walking on thin ice or already underwater here.

"-What

-Can you honestly tell me that in two months of travel with her you didn't see the way she looks at you? Because it took me two seconds.

-She's a very loyal warrior, Clarke. It can never hurts to have devoted lieutenants.

-Oh, I'm not questioning her devotion." There was a grin in Clarke's voice and Lexa understood that the girl didn't suspect her of anything; she thought it was a one-sided attraction and nothing else. Instead of relief, this only made her feel guilt –for some reason. After all, she had done nothing more than kissing Shaïra, once, in this journey.

"-Well, I'm sure you have the occasional admirer too," she said –jokingly, but Clarke's smile disappeared, and, worst, was almost immediately replaced by a really fake one.

Clarke recomposed in the second but not fast enough for Lexa not to see her reaction and the Commander's face drooped in shock.

"-Lexa, it's not…" She began, cursing herself for not being able to act better than this; she didn't mean to hide it from Lexa forever, but certainly not to break it to her around the corner with no warning. She had no idea what to say that wouldn't make it even worse now. Lexa gulped and her features got undecipherable again. There was only the slightest alteration in her voice when she spoke.

"-I'm sorry. It's not my place to enquire about such things."

Clarke's mouth dropped open on nothing. Lexa's eyes swept over her face as if looking for something before she looked down.

"-Don't be like that. Of course it's your place. I want it to be your place." She managed to articulate and Lexa looked up again, taken aback, watching her as if what she was gonna say next would have the power to mend or break her heart. All of the sudden, Clarke was furious at herself for the emotional up and down she was inflicting to Lexa. She had spent weeks wishing she had never done that when the girl was still around, and Lexa hadn't been back an hour that she was already doing it again.

"-Look, things… Happened while you were away but it didn't mean anything. I thought I'd never see you again and it made me feel so, so lonely and… It was nothing, Lexa. It didn't mean a thing except that I needed someone that night.

-May I ask who it was?" The almost complete self-control that Lexa showed baffled her. Once again, as obvious as it was for her, she was certain that no one else would have seen how upset the Commander really was. She realized that there was no way in hell the answer to that question would make things better; on the other hand, she could hardly lie. For all the problems Bellamy had caused her since that night, she had never wished so much that this all thing never happened. She breathed his name out anxiously. She had expected a bad reaction but not the range of emotions that showed on Lexa's face in the blink of an eye nor the way she closed again and stepped back.

"-You're lying then." That stung.

"-N-no, what…

-You care about him. You always did. You won't even hold his actions against him, he's the one you turn to when you're lonely…

-Lexa, no, it's not…

-How can you say it didn't mean anything when you…

-Because I wished it was you the whole time!" She blurted out and Lexa took is as she had physically hit her. "-Because every minute it lasted I wished it was you instead of him! I pictured you every time I closed my eyes, I wanted you to be with me instead of him all along!"

Lexa had been stepping back, stepping away from her a little more with each word and when she finally hit the wall, she made Clarke's heart skip a beat by suddenly breaking down in tears. She watched in shock for a second, the sight of the crying Commander made even more unbearable by the knowledge that she was the one who caused it; when Lexa buried her face in her hands, she knew it was because she was ashamed of herself, ashamed to show what she considered weakness.

She approached her, took one of her wrists in her hand. Lexa tried to shake it away but she held on gently but firmly, muttering reassurances –not much words, mostly soothing nothings, anything to make her feel safe enough to drop her guard- until the other girl finally let her see her face again. She was still crying, Clarke saw with sadness, not sobbing but tears wouldn't stop rolling down from her eyes, multiplying the dark streaks on her cheeks.

"-I'm so sorry, Lexa. If I could take it back…"

Lexa shook her head. "-Don't be. I am. I f…." Literally for the first time since she knew her Lexa choked on her words and Clarke thought she was really going to break down, under the weight of this buried pain she didn't understand, but she pulled herself together as always. "-I failed. I failed my people, I failed you…" Her voice died in a muffled sob, almost a whimper that shook Clarke to the core.

"-What are you talking about? Lexa, you failed no one. We're going to destroy Alie, your people will be okay, and you're here, you're back just like you pro…"

She was cut but a jolt of pain in her head, the now oh-so-familiar pain. No, please, no, I just need a little more time.

"-Clarke?"

She took few hesitant steps back, leaving Lexa leaning on the wall. It didn't seem as bad as it had sometimes been, maybe still attenuated by the antidote.

"-Clarke, are you all right?" Lexa wouldn't even have to redo her warpaints, Clarke figured as she looked up to the other girl; her tears had left new streaks of black on her face but it looked like they had been painted too, as if she had drawn five tears instead of the usual three. Her green eyes were dry, now, and focused on Clarke; she had snapped back into full control of herself the second she had started worrying about Clarke.

"-Is it Alie?" Clarke nodded and a look of pure hate appeared on Lexa's face.

"-It's okay though, it's not too bad. I think morphine will do this time.

-Do you have some?

-Yeah. Octavia took it in the infirmary so I wouldn't have to go back there myself. But it's strong stuff, if I take it now, I'll be too sleepy to be of much use in the next hours. I should just...

-Take it. I'll take care of everything. You can ride with me and sleep it off when we leave.

She stared at Lexa –I'll take care of everything, when was the last time someone had told her that ?- until the girl shifted under her look.

"-Is that okay with you?

-I'm so glad you're back," she let out, then, too tired to hold back, "-Don't leave me again."

…

She stuck by Lexa's side for the next hour, feeling just a little drowsy at the beginning, but as the effect of the pills struck in full force, it became harder to even keep her eyes open. She almost fell asleep on her feet as they supervised the departure of the fourth out of five groups; she blenched back to reality when Lexa called her name and gave her arm a little shake.

"-Hm. Yeah. I'm here.

-Do you think you can hold on for another hour?

-Yeah, sure." She almost added an automatic "Don't worry" but figured it wouldn't stop Lexa from worrying anyway. She shouldn't have because for once Clarke felt kind of good. True, she would have welcomed a bed or even the back of Lexa's horse with relief, but she could handle being tired –and it wasn't like she had to be functional. Things were in someone else's hands for once and she didn't have, for the time being, to bear it all.

Despite her reassurances, Lexa had to shake her awake once more before they could finally leave the camp. She had sat on the edge of a cart, the Commander standing impossibly close to her even as she talked to one of her lieutenants, and had closed her eyes –just a second, she told herself, but when that short time ended, her head had found Lexa's waist to rest against and she was fast asleep.

"-Clarke." Just a gentle shake on her shoulder.

-Oh. Sorry. I'm awake.

-Do you want to leave now with them? I'll make sure the last groups…

-No! No, I'm staying with you. I mean, I have to see that everything goes right.

-Do you see much with closed eyes?" Lexa teased.

"-Actually I do. Silver dreams, remember?" She grunted while getting out of the cart. Lexa's smile disappeared.

-Did you…

-No, morphine's still kicking in, obviously. Just a bad joke."

When the time came for them to leave as well, she didn't mount the horse as much as climb it –this beast was huge even though Lexa hopped on top of it without pausing for a beat. The girl settled behind her in the saddle, grabbing the reins as Clarke shifted to leave her more space.

"-What the… Does your horse have three ears?

-He does, but I'm afraid the third one isn't developed enough to be of any use. We let them live when the defaults are this minor, but not reproduce."

Clarke added nothing. Irresistibly, that deformity, as small as it was, made her think back to the two-headed deer they had seen the day they crashed on Earth.

They were not quite closing the column of riders and carts but still amongst the last ones to leave; the very first group was already three quarters of the way to the safe zone. She had seen armies on the move before, but it was another thing to see an entire camp travel; for one thing, it was much, much slower. The column stretched to the line of the first trees and disappeared from her sight as the warriors entered the forest.

She leaned into Lexa who passed the reins in her right hand to let her left arm free to hold Clarke's waist, slowly enough to let her the time to stop her if she wanted to.

She stayed still and smiled at the touch, even though she was still wondering what Lexa was hiding from her. For a moment, in the Council room, she had been about to tell her, but… She felt a pang of fear at the thought of what had happened next. Now that she was so close to her, she could feel Lexa's breathing; wheezing, really. Clarke had, through Octavia, got Jackson to give her antibiotics, and she hoped it would rapidly produce good effect, but in the meantime, she was still scared for her, scared by the stain of blood on Lexa's lips and by how quick it had been for her to run out of air. And Clarke had managed to make her cry, which she couldn't think of without guilt. This was the exact opposite of everything she wanted.

"-Lexa?" She started, after few minutes of silent riding. She was surprised of how sleepy her voice sounded.

"-Yes, Clarke?" She smiled again. Why exactly would Lexa feel the need to add her name when clearly they were talking to each other, she didn't know, but she was starting to wonder if it wasn't just because she liked to say it.

"-I'd like to ask you few things, and I… need you to be honest. Is that okay?" She felt Lexa nod almost immediately and wondered how she had ever thought that the girl didn't care. "-You… Even with all the possible… complications… You want to be with me?

She felt Lexa stiffen and hold her breath, her hand clenching against Clarke. When she answered, fear, tension were palpable in her voice, almost painful to hear.

"-Yes." Clarke heard her start something else, change her mind, and repeat, in a somewhat more controlled voice, "-Yes." And then a third time, lower, "-Yes.

-Well. Good. At least we're on the same page."

A shaky breath was Lexa's sole answer. Clarke put her arm on Lexa's, covering her hand with hers, careful not to hurt her.

"-How do we deal with being the leaders of different peoples then?

-We shouldn't be different peoples," Lexa answered fast. "-Regardless of… of you and I. Sky people should officially join the Coalition. You'd have lands that no one would try to get back and with time, other clans will accept you. Your people would be safe. And… A Commander and a Clan leader... It's not unheard of.

-You really gave it some thoughts, huh?" The shy tone Lexa used by the end of her answer irresistibly called for some teasing. Lexa didn't seem to realize it was, though, moving Clarke almost to tears.

"-Everyday." A silence. "-I missed you so much."

Clarke bit her lip, barely containing a wide smile. "-Yeah, no, I think I beat you on that. The stupid moon was my only time measure. You should see how Sky people react when they ask you what day it is and you answer something about the phase of the moon."

Lexa chuckled and pressed her face on Clarke's hair, dropping light kisses on it until she found the skin of Clarke's neck underneath. Then it wasn't so light anymore. Clarke let her head fall slightly backward to let her better access, amazed to find herself trembling under Lexa's contact. They were on a goddamn horse, surrounded by dozens of people and she found it fortunate; otherwise, she might have lost more than a little time answering those kisses. She hadn't known how much, how much she really wanted this with every fiber of her being until feeling Lexa's lips marking her skin.

"-Commander," she forced herself to say. "-We're not exactly alone."

"-Yet," Lexa corrected, slowly pulling away, coming back to a less compromising stance. It was Clarke's turn to let out a laugh.

"-You're back," she said, still amazed that those words were true. Lexa tighten her grip on her, settling even closer.

"-I'm back," She echoed.

…..

Clarke shifted in her sleep, causing Lexa to instinctively pull her closer; she progressively relaxed as Clarke stayed still after this. She knew she was holding her uselessly close and yet couldn't stop herself to hang on to her as if the girl would be ripped away from her should she let go for even a second. The close contact –Clarke was resting against her, their legs touching, her arm still on Lexa's- was barely enough to reassure her, filled her with as much fear as happiness. The sleeping girl in her arms was just that, just a girl, so small, so fragile compared to all she had to face, and Lexa had already failed to protect so many people that it was hard to believe she could protect her – but she couldn't stand to think about the alternative. Not now when Clarke had just stopped fighting her, when Clarke was in her arms and Lexa only had to lean a little to kiss the top of her head or her temple –which she had been doing every time she was certain that no one was looking at her.

Bellamy. She had never liked to hear his name in Clarke's mouth, but this was taking it to an all-new level. Even if Clarke swore he had been at best a substitute for her –confusing thought; the only thing Lexa and him had in common was their caring for Clarke, but they shared that with all of her friends and yet it was him she had turned to. Not that Lexa would have liked her to turn to anyone for that anyway, but the thought of Bellamy and Clarke together irked her more than anything else. She couldn't imagine this to be casual, certainly not for him, and hardly for Clarke. And she wouldn't punish him. What did this mean? What kind of relationship did they have exactly? Clarke seemed doubtless about wanting to be with her -her heart fluttered at the thought and she unconsciously tightened her grip on her again- but what did he want? What was he looking for when he had kept her prisoner in the infirmary? No, she couldn't believe their night had meant as little for him as Clarke swore it did for her. And she could even less believe that he was still in charge of the Sky Guard and walking just few meters behind them. That wouldn't do.

Clarke interrupted her thoughts by moving a little and mumbling few unintelligible words without waking up. Lexa smiled to herself, her anger vanishing instantly; she quickly looked around and put a tender kiss on Clarke's hair. They didn't have that much time of peace, but for the moment being Clarke was safe and sound cuddling in her arms and for a little while everything was peaceful and good.

They rode for a maybe an hour and a half, which brought them to the limit of what they had delimited as a safe zone; according to Monty's calculations, they had been far enough from the camp for two dozens of minutes, but Clarke had insisted they put an extra distance between them and the core as precaution. She was still sleeping but Lexa thought she wasn't going to much longer–her breathing had changed and she was moving more and more. She wanted to let her wake up on her own and the girl wasn't far from it when the horizon exploded.

The sound shook the air all the way from the camp and Clarke awoke with a startle; Lexa, struggling to keep her frightened horse immobile, felt her grab her arm with both hands. They both turned to the camp in a single move, as did all the soldiers, walkers, riders around them.

The explosion had looked like a blooming flower of flames rising up to the sky in shades of burning reds and yellows and icy silver but it was already fading to a grounded fire.

"-Don't look at the fire," She told Clarke, forcing her own look away.

"-God, it really happened," Clarke breathed out, giving no sign of having heard Lexa.

"-Did you doubt it would?

-No, but…" She finally turned away. "-We got everyone out, right? There was no one left?

-No. Everyone is in the safe zone. You saved them, Clarke.

-Well. Let's not cry victory so soon. We still have to disable that thing, and only then we'll have saved everyone. For now."

The sky above the camp had took a dark color; the fire was growing at an alarming speed, flames licking every building; sometimes one would grow above the rest and reach terrifying heights.

Clarke jumped out of the horse's back, quickly followed by Lexa, and rushed to Raven and the science team. Octavia dismounted her own horse to join them immediately, and, to Lexa's displeasure, Bellamy approached too.

"-We have the radios and protective suits ready," was Raven's greeting to the two leaders.

"-Same for the volunteers," Bellamy completed, waving a hand at a small group of Sky guards. Lexa wondered if he would go with them, thinking that if he was to die in the line of duty, well, not that anyone wished it to happen, but after all, war was war and… Her train of thoughts stopped when she saw Leal among the volunteers. Clarke noticed her too, and Lexa saw her eyes widen at the sight – sure, the girl looked less good than she had before their journey; much skinnier, paler, and of course there was the barely cicatrized wound on her face tracing a red and still swollen line from her cheekbone to her chin.

"-Leal, you sure you wanna go there?" Clarke asked. "-You've already done more than your part…

-I'm sure." Dry, low, but determinate. "-I'm the only one who knows what to expect.

-But you…

-If she'd rather die well than live a coward, Clarke, let her," Lexa intervened, earning scandalized looks from the Sky people.

"-Lexa!" Clarke even protested.

"-No, she's right," Leal said softly and the looks turned to her, but she was staring at Lexa. Their eyes met for a brief second. Lexa tensed and gave her nothing but a cold look. She couldn't have the girl thinking this would in any way make up for Riverhead.

"-So when do they leave?" Bellamy asked. Lexa felt a tingle of anger at the confirmation that he wouldn't go with them. He acted like he wasn't to be blamed for anything, like he still had a rightful place next to Clarke in commandment.

"-Now. By the time they get there, the fire will have died down," Octavia answered before Clarke could. She, Yalle and Nath were standing between Bellamy and Clarke, as if randomly placed but leaving him no chance to get closer.

Everyone turned to the fire at the answer. The bright colors had toned down, letting place to uniform silver flames. Lexa stepped closer from Clarke who looked scared.

"-Are you all right?" She whispered only for Clarke's ears.

"-Yeah. I'm just wondering how we're supposed to send everyone there. I'm afraid we're just ordering them to go die.

-It's not real fire," Leal intervened. Clarke turned her look to her.

"-What do you mean?"

The girl shrugged. "-I don't know how to explain it. It burns and looks like fire but it's not. We have more than enough protective suits with the ones from the mountain and those," Lexa saw her struggle to talk about the suits they had taken from the Overseas Men in Riverhead, "-those we brought back, for every person of the team to put on two of them. I think it'd be enough to get to the core now that there's just silver fire.

-I guess it'll have cooled down by the time you get there… Okay. It's time, then."

It took just few minutes for the small team to get ready and leave with two radios –short-distance ones only, since they weren't that far from the camp. They would ride as far as the horses would carry them and walk the rest of distance.

After a while, Clarke went to sit in the back of one of the carts with Raven and Monty, followed by Octavia –and Bellamy tried to follow as well. Both of Clarke's guards moved, slightly, just enough to get in his way. Lexa saw his face harden before he called Clarke's name with anger.

"-Don't talk to her," She warned. Clarke hadn't reacted to Bellamy's call but she looked up when hearing her voice. So did Bellamy, distracted for a second.

"-With all due respect, Commander, I don't think what Clarke and I have to say to each other is any of your business.

-What you think is irrelevant. She has nothing to say to you.

-Yeah, beat it, Bellamy," Octavia added before her brother had time to say anything. "-Don't you have to be like anywhere else?"

He backed up at that, easily enough, but Lexa felt a pang of uneasiness seeing his anger. Surely what he had done to Clarke initiated from good intentions, but it didn't mean he couldn't act with bad ones either. She watched him leave until he was out of sight, and only then joined Clarke and her friends.

Said friends surprised her by moving a little away when she approached to leave her a place right next to Clarke; glancing at them, she caught an exchange of looks between Raven and Octavia, and a smirk –a smirk- on Raven's face. She would have said something –maybe- but Clarke looked away from the team to watch her settle next to her; both Raven and Octavia were relegated far from her thoughts as her eyes met the blue of Clarke's and she gave a small but affectionate smile to the blonde girl. Clarke smiled back, granting Lexa a soft, almost happy look. Her friends were ostensibly looking away and Monty had even found something very urgent to do somewhere else and left the cart.

After an hesitation, Lexa settled against Clarke, who instantly leaned rested her head on her shoulder. Lexa's heart swelled with joy. This felt good in a way she had forgotten years ago.

"-When this is over," She muttered, omitting the "if we're both still alive then" part that they both knew was implied, "-Will you come to Polis with me?"

Clarke took few seconds before whispering an answer. "-Yes."

Lexa buried her face in Clarke's hair, kissed her head through her golden hair again and again. The girl giggled –something Lexa had never heard her do and she immediately decided she wanted to hear this sound every day from now on- causing her friends to abandon them the cart for good. It only made Clarke laugh even more.

"-I should warn you, we'll never hear the end of this.

-Let them talk. Actually, let's give them even more to talk about."

Clarke raised her head to address her a radiant smile –which faded away when Octavia called her, alarmed. The two leaders instantly focused their attention to the team, still horse riding. Lexa was the first of them to spot what had caught Octavia's eye.

A horde of silver-eyed.

Coming from the forest, they were running to take position between the camp and the team. Clarke gasped.

"-Where the hell are they coming from?

-Raven, warn the team!" Lexa ordered.

"-Do I tell them to come back?

-Clarke, there's no time for that. The Wasteland will expand if we don't stop it fast. We need to send warriors to defend them until they reach the core.

-But your warriors can't approach and we don't have enough suits to send mine safely."

Lexa gave her a meaningful look.

"-I can't order them to go fight knowing they don't have a chance to make it back!

-It's either sacrifice a few or lose everything, Clarke.

-Clarke?" Raven called anxiously. "-What do I tell them to do?"

Clarke drew in a deep breath, her eyes flickering to Lexa as in search of an answer. Or maybe just reassurance. "-Tell them to continue. We're sending back-ups."


End file.
